During the October international break, I wrote a column posing three questions for Arsenal ahead of the upcoming ‘block.’ Chief among those questions was how Arsenal replace Martin Odegaard. ‘Arsenal certainly have the depth and the options to deal with Odegaard’s absence but make no mistake, he will be missed,’ was my conclusion.
I am not pretending that prediction represented incredible foresight. On the face of it, Arsenal won six and drew one of their seven games during the last block, so you could argue he wasn’t seriously missed. However, I think it is fair to say that Arsenal eked out a lot of those wins in a businesslike manner that largely lacked razzmatazz.
Don’t get me wrong, all the points show up the same on the table and Arsenal’s ability to lean on a mean defence and a scary efficiency at setpieces is all gravy with me- but we saw a less fluent Arsenal, for sure and I think over a season you need to see the full range of a team’s qualities over an extended league campaign.
In the aforementioned column, I speculated that we would see a mix of Eze, Nwaneri and Merino to replace Odegaard, all of whom assume some, but not all, of the captain’s qualities. That prediction proved to be inaccurate. Merino was needed upfront and Nwaneri did not feature much. Of those seven games, Eze started five in Odegaard’s role.
The two he didn’t start were a Carabao Cup game against Brighton and an away game at Slavia Praha in the Champions League where the side was rotated a little. Needless to say, Eze is a very different profile of player to Odegaard, one of the reasons the Norwegian is so difficult to replace is due to his involvement in every phase of the game.
Since signing for Arsenal, Odegaard averages 46.6 passes per game and 64.3 touches per game. This season, Eze has averaged 29.3 passes per game and 44.2 touches. That doesn’t make him a worse player than Odegaard by any means. Eze also lands 2.75 shots per game whereas Odegaard’s average during his time at Arsenal is 1.9.
Eze has never really played as a ‘right eight’ during his career, at Crystal Palace he typically played from the left as a winger or as a left 10. He has also moved from a transitional, counterattacking team where he was the standout attacker to a ball dominant team with more of a means to share the attacking burden and where the true north star of the attack is Bukayo Saka.
Eze is more of a ‘moments’ player as a result and Arsenal have benefited from some of those individual feats already this season, most notably his winning goal against his former club, as well as his outstanding quarter-back assist for Martinelli at home to Manchester City. Arsenal drew 14 league games last season, they could have done with a higher number of individual feats.
If Odegaard works an opponent by weaving, ducking and diving and landing lots of jabs to the abdomen then Eze is your uppercut guy. Ideally a team needs both profiles. A lot of Odegaard’s touches have been redistributed to Declan Rice, his average number of passes per 90 has rocketed from 52.5 per 90 last season to 73.0 this and his touches have risen from 62.0 per 90 to 82.0 per 90.
This is all part of the resilience that Arsenal have built into their squad, of course, not just the level of depth that means they can replace a player like Martin Odegaard with Eberechi Eze but that means they can show different faces. In the last block, the injuries to multiple attackers, plus having a new nine in Gyokeres and a new 10 in Eze meant they had to lean on their more industrial qualities.
Not only were they integrating new pieces in attack but there was a lack of ability to swap them in-game, by the end of the ‘block’, Arsenal were running with two fit wingers and Mikel Merino upfront and they ran out of gas in the final minutes at Sunderland. It hasn’t been the easiest framework for Eze to fit into but it will build his resilience and his integration long-term.
One of the reasons Arsenal have coped well without Odegaard is not just because of the depth that has been created but because Arsenal had to cope and adapt without him last season. They didn’t do it exceptionally, of course, and the player himself struggled to rediscover form upon his return.
It was a painful learning curve for Arsenal last season but it has probably increased their resilience this season. For now anyway, you simply cannot miss key players for extended periods if you want to win the league. While I would wager that Eze won’t play in the ‘right eight’ position very much at all when Odegaard returns, I think it will help him to understand the team better.
Rice taking on more responsibility in build-up will also make him a better player in the long-term and when Odegaard returns, I would expect to see that burden on him decrease. Ultimately, though, this period should mean that Arsenal have more of an ability to switch up in difficult games and try different approaches and should reduce their dependence on their captain.
For Eze, I still see him as Arsenal’s left-winger in the long-term, once he gets a run there, he will likely go through another period of adaption, building partnerships with a left-back and the ‘left eight.’ But the good thing about an experienced, quality, Premier League proved player like Eze is that he will probably provide end-product while he works it out.
