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“It’s no time to feel sorry for ourselves, we have to keep going,” was the rallying cry from captain Martin Odegaard after his no-show in Arsenal’s shock 1-0 defeat at home to West Ham on Saturday. “There are still many games to be played, and we have to keep going. The main thing now is to win the next one and work from there.”
The Gunners failed to take advantage of Premier League leaders Liverpool’s slip-up at Aston Villa in midweek. The gap to the Reds remained at eight points, extended to 11 just over 24 hours later when Arne Slot’s men ran out 2-0 winners at Manchester City – a feat Mikel Arteta has never been able to match.
Back at the Emirates Stadium, Arsenal failed to really lay a glove on the Hammers, organised excellently by Graham Potter for his first statement victory since taking the job last month. The injury crisis which has plagued the Gunners’ campaign takes a large portion of the blame, but regardless, two shots on target from 20 and barely over one expected goal created, even if they played the last 25 minutes or so one man light, were some pretty pathetic statistics.
The Arsenal of this season have seldom been able to replicate the attacking exploits of the last two. Given Bukayo Saka, at this point perhaps underrated by the masses outside the club for the load he has to carry, hasn’t been able to play since December and is unlikely to again until late March, that’s not too surprising.
However, the underperformance of Odegaard – who this writer voted for the FWA Men’s Football of the Year for 2023-24 – has gone under the radar as much as Saka’s world-class brilliance. Were the Norwegian even half the player he was last year, Arsenal may still be within a more promising distance to Liverpool. No player in red and white in the West Ham defeat covered themselves in glory, but the skipper and main creative outlet was particularly out of sync.