Odegaard on form, Chelsea and Aubameyang's return

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 evening's game against Chelsea, you can read a snippet of his latest column which includes his thoughts on our recent form, the challenge Chelsea will give us and the return of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang.

Lately we have not playing the way we want to and the way we have been doing the whole season. I think now we need to have a kind of reset, and get back to being ourselves, and make sure we are playing our own part.



We went into Wednesday night’s game after three draws, but honestly, I didn’t sense any drop in confidence for that Manchester City game. I felt the team was ready, and everyone believed we could go there and beat them. That was the feeling I had before – that everyone was really confident that we could do it, so I don’t think those previous games affected us like that, but you never know.

This is football and when you haven’t won for a few games, then you concede early again, perhaps it affects you a little bit. All I can say though is that my feeling about the team going into the game was really good, and that’s why it’s so annoying that we couldn’t give them a fight.



Now we have to look at the next games, starting tonight against Chelsea. All we can do now is do our own job properly, and not look anywhere else. We have to make sure we win the rest of the games, but we need to just look at it day by day, get back to doing the simple things and doing everything properly as we have done all season.



We have to play our part, and that starts now against Chelsea. We have to make sure we win the game and keep going. Our job is to control the things we can, and make sure we keep it alive. That’s a big challenge tonight because Chelsea have got so much quality all over the pitch, and on the bench as well. It’s an amazing squad.



From the outside I don’t know what has been happening there, but as players we are focussed on what we will face on the pitch and they have so many unbelievable players to choose from, so we have to be very, very sharp, get back to our level and strike back.



We will welcome Auba back tonight as well. I played with him a bit before he left here, and I know about the amazing things he did here before that. He had some really good moments here, especially winning the FA Cup. We remember the great things he did for the club, and he’s a great guy as well.

Read the rest of Odegaard’s notes, as well as a host of other fantastic content, by buying a copy of the Arsenal v Chelsea programme either around the stadium or online.