Before every game at Emirates Stadium, Martin Odegaard lifts the lid on the mood in the camp via his captain’s notes published in the matchday programme.
Ahead of today’s game against Chelsea, Martin reflects on our brilliant derby day last Sunday, and turns his attention to another key capital clash when Chelsea arrive, and what it’s like playing them so frequently. Here is a snippet:
It was a great result last weekend. To win the derby is always big, but especially given the way we did it, it was even more special.
Following on from the draw we had at Wolves there was a lot of frustration. Our response was brilliant, and in those few days between the two games we did really well as a group and as a team. We focused on ourselves and put in a strong performance. The way we got together in those few days was vital to the result at the weekend in my opinion.
When you drop points like we did at Wolves, it’s always going to be frustrating. It can be easy to let all the reaction from the outside world affect you. But as a group, we got together, helped to get each other back up and looked at the bigger picture. We knew a big derby like that was the perfect game to have next as well. So we were ready, we were prepared and we put in a top performance as well.
What a day it was for Ebs! His stats against them are just crazy now. To get a hat-trick in his first north London derby and then two more last weekend is just unbelievable, and I know he scored a couple against them last season too. But even not including the goals, I thought his overall performance was great. He played really well and really deserved those goals. We were all so happy for him.
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Vik as well scored two more goals and in fairness he has been playing that way for a while now. As a striker I know he loves to get the goals, and that gives him even more confidence and a different feeling on the pitch, but I think he’s been great the whole time. You can really see that now with the goals coming more and more often, but also what he gives us on the pitch apart from the goals is massive. He’s doing really well and again we’re all happy for him.
I heard it was 70 years since we last won four games in a row away to Tottenham, so we should be proud as a group to be involved in a run like this at the moment. We know what the game means to our supporters, so this is massive for us, it’s a great stat for us to have!
Our focus all week has been on today’s game against Chelsea, who we have played quite a lot recently. The last game in the cup was a bit different because they were quite defensive, so it was a tight game with not much space for either team. Other games against them have been quite open so we will have to see what it’s like today. What we do know is that they have lots of players with individual quality, so we expect it to be a tough one again.
For us, it’s about trying to play our own game and impacting it how we want to. You have to adapt a bit to what the opposition are doing and their style and their way of playing, but we have to be ourselves and play our game first of all, especially at home. It’s another big London derby and we’re all just feeling excited to play and go again.
Read the rest of Martin’s notes, as well as a host of other fantastic content, by buying the Arsenal v Chelsea programme either around the stadium or online.
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