Arsenal captain Martin Odegaard must ‘step up’ and win tight games for his team, believes Manchester United legend Paul Scholes.
The Norwegian played the entire game on Sunday because the Red Devils and Gunners played out a 1-1 draw at Old Trafford.
Bruno Fernandes opened the scoring for the house team just before half-time, with Declan Rice equalising after 74 minutes to secure some extent which doesn’t do much for either side, in point of fact.
Arsenal remain second within the Premier League table, but at the moment are 15 points behind leaders Liverpool, while United stay 14th.
Each teams will feel they might have won the sport on Sunday and Scholes feels Odegaard needs to be the sort of player who can get his side over the road in tight contests just like the one at Old Trafford.
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The Red Devils icon believes this of the 26-year-old because he’s a giant fan of his game, but reckons this must translate into more game-changing and goal-scoring contributions.
‘Odegaard, again, was an influence on the team, but I believe he must step up in a majority of these games, where you may just need the one goal, you may just need that little bit of brilliance,’ Scholes told Premier League Productions. ‘We’ve seen people in his position – you’re thinking that of [Kevin] De Bruyne, Phil Foden – they win games for you.
‘Martin Odegaard’s an excellent footballer, I really like to look at him, [he’s] technically gifted. But, in some unspecified time in the future, he’s got to come back and win these games for his club.’
Scholes also had an incredible mixture of compliments and shade for Arsenal, hailing them as an excellent team but one which reminds him of a mid-table La Liga side.
His considering was that the Gunners knock the ball around beautifully, but lack the leading edge to do damage on a daily enough basis to pay money for silverware.
The previous England midfielder was not pointing the finger at Odegaard this time, but Arsenal’s lack of a prolific striker.
‘What it’s with Arsenal, I believe they’re an excellent football team, but they’re almost like a mid-table Spanish team,’ he said. ‘Like a La Liga team who receive the ball, they play great football, make great angles for one another,just a little bit tippy-tappy at times, but they’ve got no real substance at the tip of it.
‘If you happen to’re going to win leagues, in the event you’re going to win Champions Leagues, you’ve got to have that little bit of brilliance sometimes in the course of the goal from a centre-forward. Whether it’s just a little little bit of subtlety with a little bit of movement, whether it’s a rebound off a keeper. Any individual sniffing with them instincts.
‘They play good football. They’re second within the league, they’re within the Champions League. I wish my team were as bad as Arsenal!
‘A superb, very attractive looking Spanish team that just can’t quite recover from the road.’
Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta admitted he was frustrated with how the sport went at Old Trafford, feeling that it went just about to plan, aside from the result.
‘I’m very frustrated that we didn’t win the sport because that’s how we prepared for it,’ he said. ‘I believe we were really good in the primary half by way of dominance, in our high press, coping with direct play, getting out of the press and arriving to the last 20 metres.
‘Then we lacked to place the knife through with more decisive actions, more accuracy in that ball to threaten more.
‘We had two or three big moments without giving them nothing, then in a single long ball we don’t manage the recovery ball in the suitable way. We make a foul and you’ve to depend on the standard of the position. They’ve one likelihood, they rating and from there, it’s game on. That offers them momentum, belief and energy.’
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