Every home game, Martin Odegaard gives you his thoughts on the goings-on around the club in his captain’s notes for the matchday programme.
Ahead of this afternoon's seasonal kick-off against Nottingham Forest, he discusses the mood in the camp ahead of the new season, playing at Wembley for the first time and coming up against a familiar face in Matt Turner.
We’re all so excited for the start of the new season, and can’t wait to be back playing in front of you all again today.
There’s a big excitement and confidence around the club at the moment, and we’re all looking forward to continuing the strong progress we made last season. We’re all hungry and determined, and just want to get going now, get back to it and fight for everything again. Our focus is on making sure we are the best we can be every day.
Sunday was a fantastic day for us, a beautiful day. It was my first ever time at Wembley Stadium and to play there and see so many happy Arsenal supporters, then of course to lift the trophy, made it a really, really special day. We enjoyed the celebrations with the supporters afterwards, and with our teammates, and it’s great to help the new players settle in too.
We face Nottingham Forest today, and it still feels very recent, our defeat against them at the end of last season. So that’s a big warning for us, and we have to show we’ve learnt from that. We had a great game against them here at home last season – especially the last hour of that game was really good – but the away game was the day we lost the league officially.
We know they are a direct team, with lots of quality up front. It’s up to us to be ready for that. We know about their goalkeeper too of course, and I think this move is a great opportunity for Matt. I only worked with him for a year, but he’s a great guy, a great character to have around and so we will miss him here. We wish him all the best there, just not today of course!
Read the rest of Odegaard’s notes, as well as a host of other fantastic content, by buying a copy of the Arsenal v Nottingham Forest programme either around the stadium or online.
You can also subscribe to get every issue this season delivered straight to your door each matchday.
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