Interview

Free-scoring Odegaard reveals hard work paying off

Martin Odegaard feels that the work he is putting in on the training ground is paying dividends after his brace saw us beat Wolves 2-0 at Molineux.

Our captain found himself in the perfect place to fire in twice during the second half to secure all three points, moving us five ahead of Manchester City at the top of the Premier League.

But the Norwegian international feels that the work he has put in with our coaching staff at London Colney has made all the difference to his game, as he took his tally up to six this campaign as the season now curtails for the World Cup.

Speaking post-match, he said: “I think I'm better at coming into those areas now - I attack the box more. They may not be the most beautiful goals but I'm in the right places and that helps a lot. I'm always happy to help the team with goals.

“It's a good way to go into the break. We said before the game that we wanted to finish strong and we wanted to bring this good feeling into the break and we did that. We have to come back even stronger and better but at the moment, it's looking good.”

Despite carving out plenty of opportunities in the first 45 minutes, we couldn’t find the breakthrough until Martin popped up with his first of the evening on 55 minutes. He felt that with Wolves switching to a five-man defence, biding our time was always going to be key.

“We talked about it before the game, and we talked about it at half-time - it's difficult to play against these teams with five at the back and we had to stay patient,” he added. ”I think we did and in the end, we got the goals.

“It was a tough one, I think we had to dig deep today. The first half was a bit slow, we were struggling on the ball to create chances really. They defended well and we know they're always dangerous on the counter, so it was a difficult game.

“Then we changed a few things. We sped up the game a little bit in the second half and we know we have quality, so we're always going to create something, but we did good to get the win.”