Martin Odegaard spoke about the positive feeling among the team ahead of this weekend’s London derby against West Ham United.
Our skipper was back to his best in last weekend’s Premier League win at home to Nottingham Forest having fully recovered from an ankle injury.
“I feel good, I think every game it’s getting better,” he said. “Being out for eight or nine weeks, it takes a little bit of time to get that rhythm back and to get full match fitness, but I felt pretty good. I think I’ve done a good job being out and working hard, so I feel good now.
“It was the longest I’ve been out. I can’t remember anything else that I’ve had that’s been so long, so it was something new to me. I’m not used to watching the games from the stand and not training with the team, so it was hard but the only thing you can do is work hard every day to make sure you come back as soon as possible stronger and better.
“It was a chance to work on some other things, be a bit more in the gym and work on other parts of the body. Also to watch the team from the stands is a bit different but I think you can learn a lot from that and that’s what I did.”
Asked how this season has compared to our 2023/24 campaign so far, Martin explained that we’re in a good position after a difficult start.
“I don’t know if it’s harder, I think we had a bit of a tough start to the season with a lot of difficult games, a lot of injuries, some games playing with 10 men, and the Premier League is hard but I feel like we’re in a good place, just getting better and better,” he said. “The players are back now fit and we’re looking really strong.
“The team is in a good state, we’re ready, we’re going to push so we just have to keep going, working hard and I’m sure we’re going to get better throughout the season.
“The main thing is we have to take it day by day and game by game. That’s important to be in the moment and not looking too far ahead. We’re confident, hungry and coming in every day pushing each other to be better and that’s what we’re going to keep doing.
“It’s a long season so we just have to keep working hard. I’m sure we’re going to get better. Now it’s time to look to the next game and try to win that.”
Copyright 2024 The Arsenal Football Club Limited. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit being given to www.arsenal.com as the source.
