Martin Odegaard Shines as Arsenal Claims Community Shield
Martin Odegaard did not so much score Arsenal’s third as bring the whole Community Shield to a halt.
He drifted into the gap, froze Gianluigi Donnarumma with a feint, then rolled the ball past him with the kind of calm that makes a 3-0 lead feel inevitable. Two minutes into the second half in Cardiff, the contest with Manchester City was effectively over. The captain’s arms went up again, silverware in his hands again, and Arsenal walked off with a statement win without the “marquee” forward they have spent the summer chasing.
Yes, it is only the Community Shield. The old superstition still hangs over it: no team has lifted this trophy and gone on to win the Premier League since 2018/19. But this was about something else. This was about Odegaard.
From frustration to focal point
At 27, the Norwegian already has his place in Arsenal folklore. He is the captain who finally hoisted the Premier League trophy in May, ending a 22-year wait and changing the club’s modern history in the process.
Yet for him personally, last season bit hard.
Knee and shoulder problems stalked him. He started only 16 league games. Across 36 appearances in all competitions, he found the net just once. For a player who had turned himself into one of the division’s most dangerous attacking midfielders, that return jarred.
The doubts came. Eberechi Eze’s name was floated as a potential upgrade. There were even calls for Declan Rice to take the armband.
Mikel Arteta, though, never flinched. “He missed five or six months for different things and it was extremely difficult for him to get any momentum,” the Arsenal manager said after Sunday’s win. “I’m sure this year if we can maintain him fit, available with the players around him, we’re going to see a very different Martin.”
The evidence in Cardiff backed that up.
Arsenal’s transfer wait – and the internal solution
Arsenal still want more firepower. They have missed out on Morgan Rogers and Vinicius Jr, and the search for the elite left winger they have been eyeing for several windows drags on. The pool of realistic, game-changing options has shrunk as the summer has rolled by. No one inside the club can say with certainty who that “statement” forward will be now, or if he will arrive at all.
So the most significant attacking upgrade may already be in the building.
A fully fit, fully sharp Odegaard changes the entire picture. The team need it. He needs it too. He is into the final two years of his contract and this season will help define what is likely to be the last major long-term deal of his career.
“Last year was really a big struggle with a lot of difficult moments,” he admitted. “That’s the worst thing for a footballer, to not be on the pitch. I had quite a lot of weird injuries and bad luck.
“After last season, to miss so many games is really frustrating. What I’ve done is use that as motivation for this year and come back stronger.”
He sounds like a man who has been stewing on those months in the treatment room. He is playing like one too.
Odegaard’s edge returns
The goal against City was the highlight, but it was not the whole story. Odegaard’s clipped cross created Arsenal’s second, and he knitted together wave after wave of attacks in what became a dominant display.
Last season, he often looked a yard off it. He pulled out of challenges he once snapped into, understandable after repeated setbacks. That hesitancy has gone. Against City, he won five of his seven duels and no player on the pitch made more recoveries. The creative hub also set the tone without the ball.
The shift did not start in Cardiff. Odegaard carried strong form into the summer, where he shone at the World Cup. Only Michael Olise recorded more assists at the tournament. He then took three weeks off, recharging with his wife and young son before rejoining Arsenal for pre-season.
“It was massive for me,” he said of that break. “It was good to end it with the title here and then a good World Cup. Then I had my break. Now I feel good.”
Arteta noticed the change as soon as his captain walked back through the door. “I sense from the first day that he joined that he has something else in the belly that he wants to prove and show because the team needs it as well,” the manager said.
Odegaard only made his first pre-season appearance just over a week ago, but he wasted no time. In 30 minutes against Borussia Dortmund, he twice sliced them open with through balls. The rhythm is returning.
New tools around the conductor
The cast around him is evolving too. With Bruno Guimaraes added to the squad, Arsenal expect more control and precision in possession. The Brazilian’s passing through the lines should feed Odegaard in the pockets where he is most dangerous, with the pitch tilted in his favour.
Last season’s title win rested on granite foundations. Arsenal did not have an elite No9. Their wide players, Bukayo Saka included, went through flat spells. It still proved enough.
This time, the equation is slightly different. Without a blockbuster forward signing through the door — at least not yet — the gains have to come from within. That is realistic. Arteta is convinced Saka has put his Achilles problem behind him and can go again. On the left, Christos Tzolis already looks like an upgrade, giving Arsenal more thrust and variation.
But the real accelerator sits at No8/No10.
At his peak in 2022/23, Odegaard scored 15 Premier League goals and added seven assists. The following year he posted eight goals and 11 assists. Then the ankle trouble came, and with it the familiar theme: interrupted rhythm, momentum lost, form stuttering.
The Community Shield hinted that the cycle might finally be broken.
The heartbeat, restored
Odegaard looked light on his feet, sharp in his decisions, and ruthless in the moments that mattered. Physically, he appears back to the levels that made him one of the division’s most complete midfielders. Technically, the touch and disguise have never left him.
Arsenal have already seen him lift a league title as captain. The question now is whether he can drive them to another, not as a symbol of their resurgence, but as the creative heartbeat of an attack reborn without the superstar signing everyone expected.
