Arsenal picked up a deserved 2-1 win over Brentford at the Emirates this evening and Martin Odegaard, irrespective of what his stats say, was the best player on the pitch.
The Gunners started the game brilliantly. We dominated possession from the very first minute and Brentford just couldn’t get the ball back. We were all over them and Odegaard ran the show from his number 10 role.
The Norwegian occupied the right side of our attack along with Bukayo Saka and tormented Brentford. He was absolutely outstanding, especially in the first half, but his stats don’t look great at all.
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Shock stats say Martin Odegaard was really poor against Brentford
Odegaard played the full 90 minutes for Arsenal against Brentford.
According to SofaScore, the former Real Madrid man had 86 touches of the ball and maintained a passing accuracy of 89 per cent. He registered one key pass, had a shot at goal and missed one big chance.
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Odegaard attempted four crosses in the game but not a single one found a teammate. He won just 50 per cent of his duels and lost possession 15 times.
SofaScore gave Odegaard’s performance a rating of 6.8/10 – only Kieran Tierney, Aaron Ramsdale and Gabriel Magalhaes were rated lower.
Proof that stats can be misleading
If an Arsenal fan who hadn’t watched the game had a look at these stats, they would’ve concluded that Odegaard had a really poor game against Brentford.
However, the Norwegian was absolutely outstanding from start to finish. His movement, fancy footwork and fantastic vision was just too much for the Bees at times, and in our opinion, he deserves the man of the match award ahead of Saka and Smith Rowe.
Stats are usually a great way to see how good a player is but Odegaard’s numbers today prove that they don’t always tell the complete story and can be very misleading sometimes.
Give Odegaard a 9/10 rating and the man of the match award!
