Arsenal could already have Odegaard 2.0 in Hale End "diamond"
Arsenal could already have Odegaard 2.0 in Hale End “diamond”
Aside from Wednesday night, the last month of football has been a joy to watch for the Arsenal faithful.
Mikel Arteta’s men have been imperious in the Premier League, and five wins in a row have seen them reaffirm their title credentials.
While it’s difficult to pick a stand-out player from those games, it’s hard to look past club captain Martin Odegaard, who has been masterful in midfield for the Gunners in recent weeks – he’s the sort of player who doesn’t come around very often.
That said, the talent factory that is Hale End might’ve just produced a gem who could get pretty close.
Martin Odegaard’s time at Arsenal
Odegaard first joined Arsenal in a surprise loan move from European juggernauts Real Madrid in January 2021, and while he was far from poor, a return of just two goals and two assists in 20 appearances left some wondering whether it was worth signing him on a permanent in the summer.
However, Arteta and Edu were sure and opted to spend £34m on the Norwegian international in the August and to say that it was money well spent would be a vast understatement.
In his first full season as a Gunner, the mercurial midfielder scored seven goals and provided five assists in 40 appearances before being named club captain in July 2022, reflecting the impact he was having on the club outside his raw numbers.
With this renewed responsibility, the former Madrid man scored 15 goals and provided eight assists in 45 games during the 2022/23 season as he came agonisingly close to ending Arsenal’s two-decade title drought in his first campaign as captain.
While the “pure talent”, as talent scout Jacek Kulig dubbed him, took longer to kick into gear this season than last year, he’s still amassed an impressive eight goals and seven assists in 32 games.
The 25-year-old has become an essential cog in Arteta’s Arsenal machine, and the Spaniard has made his feelings about the star no secret: “You notice him around the building all the time because he’s doing all the right things that he needs. I think he’s quite funny and a really likable person, so committed, and I’m really, really happy to have him as a captain.”
Nothing guarantees success in football, but having a player like Odegaard as captain can only help the Gunners get closer to the promised land.
The rise of Ethan Nwaneri
The Hale End gem that could duke it out for Odegaard’s place in the years to come is 16-year-old Ethan Nwaneri.
Now, generally, fans aren’t aware of the 16-year-old prospects in their academies because, well, those prospects don’t tend to warrant people knowing about them at such a young age, but Nwaneri is different.
The “special player”, as described by U23 scout Antonio Mango, caught the attention of the footballing world last season as he became the youngest Premier League player in history when coming on against Brentford in September 2022 at just 15 years and 181 days old.
He’s since made it onto the first-team bench on multiple occasions and finally got his second run out with the team earlier this month when he came on for the last 13 minutes against West Ham United.
However, while his minor cameos with the first team have caught the attention of the media, it’s his performances with the junior sides that should leave Gooners the most excited.
Ethan Nwaneri’s youth record
Described as an “absolute diamond” by Kulig, Nwaneri has made 42 appearances for Arsenal’s various youth sides, scoring 20 goals and providing nine assists in the process, meaning that he currently averages a goal involvement every 1.44 games, which is frankly remarkable for a 16-year-old.
However, while his effectiveness in front of goal is a brilliant attribute for a player so young, it’s not his only one.
Arteta is known to appreciate positional versatility in his players – just look at Ben White and Leandro Trossard – and this is something that the Hale End gem has in spades.
In his short time with the junior sides, Nwaneri has already played as an attacking midfielder, a right-winger, a left-winger, and a centre-forward. Data analyst Ben Mattinson has also claimed that the youngster could “play in many” different positions when he becomes a first-teamer.
However, Mattinson also claims that the 5 foot 9 dynamo’s best position could mirror “where Odegaard played last season,” which was as a hybrid between a second striker and a traditional ten.
He credits the prospect’s “creativity, vision, finishing, spatial awareness” and “dribbling” as his strongest qualities, which, combined with his “tight turn radius”, could make him the perfect understudy to the Arsenal captain.
Finally, while Nwaneri has shown his positional versatility in the academy, his ability to play in attacking midfield and right-wing is most important if he is the long-term Odegaard successor, as this is the space that the Norwegian likes to operate in, as demonstrated with heatmaps from this season and last season.
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Ultimately, the Gunners are lucky to have a captain as talented as Odegaard, and while he’s irreplaceable at the moment, Hale End is set to gift them a gem who could carry the Norwegian’s mantle a few years down the line.