Martin Odegaard Returns to Arsenal Training Ahead of New Season
Martin Odegaard is back in the building.
Arsenal’s captain reported for pre-season duty at London Colney this week, cutting short the quiet of his post-World Cup break and stepping into the rhythm of a squad already deep into their summer work. The club confirmed his return with training images on their official channels, a familiar figure back in the centre of things.
He won’t, however, be in the centre of anything in Dublin.
While Mikel Arteta’s senior group prepare to face Real Betis on Wednesday evening, Odegaard remains in England, working through the first days of his tailored fitness programme. The rest of the squad flew out for the friendly, leaving their playmaker to start his own pre-season slightly behind the collective curve.
That delay is calculated, not concerning. Arsenal have already set the template.
Gabriel Magalhaes and Gabriel Martinelli rejoined the group only last week after Brazil’s World Cup exit, and neither featured in the subsequent friendly against Girona. The pattern is clear: return, recondition, then reappear. No shortcuts, no sentiment.
The medical and performance staff are determined to give each returning international a small buffer before they are exposed to match intensity. A few days of controlled work at London Colney, then minutes from the bench. The World Cup may be over, but the physical toll lingers.
Odegaard’s timing fits neatly into that schedule. Brazil’s World Cup campaign ended on July 5th; Norway’s on July 11th. The Brazilians came back first, the Norwegian follows a week later. It’s a staggered reintroduction, mapped against the dates of elimination.
By the same logic, the rest of Arsenal’s World Cup contingent, whose tournaments finished seven or eight days after Norway’s, are expected to filter back into training by Thursday of next week. That leaves them with only a sliver of preparation time before the Community Shield on Sunday, August 16th.
The conclusion writes itself: expectations for their involvement at Wembley are low. Match sharpness cannot be manufactured in a few days, and Arsenal look unwilling to gamble on reputations over readiness.
Odegaard’s more realistic target lies closer to home.
Arsenal host Borussia Dortmund in the Emirates Cup this weekend, and that fixture now looms as the natural stage for his first minutes of the summer. The pattern from Girona offers a strong clue. Piero Hincapie, Kai Havertz, and Viktor Gyokeres each logged around half an hour in that game, easing their way into action rather than being thrown straight into the starting XI.
That is likely the blueprint: similar managed minutes for the Gabriels against Betis, then a controlled reintroduction for Odegaard on Sunday.
The captain is back on the grass, the ball at his feet again. The next step is simple: turn those training strides at London Colney into competitive touches under the Emirates lights, and lead Arsenal into a season that will demand even more from him than the last.
