Before every game at Emirates Stadium, Martin Odegaard lifts the lid on the mood in the camp via his captain’s notes published in the matchday programme.
Ahead of tonight's Carabao Cup semi-final first leg against Newcastle United, Martin discusses his recent bout of illness and current status, our first two games of the year and his hopes for silverware in 2025. Here's a snippet:
Firstly, on behalf of all the players, we wish a very happy new year to you all – and welcome back to Emirates Stadium for the first time in 2025.
We started the year with a really strong and solid performance - and good win - away to Brentford last week. We controlled pretty much all of the game, and could have scored a few more in the first half. We gave away a pretty soft goal, but apart from that, I think we did really well and deserved the win. It was a great way to start the year, especially considering the injuries and illnesses we had going around the squad.
I wasn’t feeling too well before that game either to be honest, and there were a few of us struggling, so it was a great sign that we could pull together to get the win. At this time of year you always face different challenges, and illness in the squad can be one of them, so it’s important how you deal with it and come through it. That’s why it’s important we don’t rely on one or two players every time, and for the last few years now we’ve spread the goals around the team very well. That’s what we want, and we had it again at Brentford, with three different goalscorers that day too. We want to share the goals, and it’s always great to see people come in and take their chance and contribute when the team needs it.
Then at the weekend, Ethan Nwaneri stepped up as well, he did really well for his goal at Brighton. He’s done that all season when he’s had the chance he’s done well and shown his qualities. He’s growing more and more into the team, understanding what the coaches want, and his confidence is obviously growing too as a result of that. It’s great to see, it was just a shame that he picked up an issue and had to go off at half-time.
The second half was really frustrating for us. I don’t want to focus on the referee’s decisions, because I never like to do that, but all I will say is none of us have seen many penalties given for situations like that before. There is a small contact on the head there, but William touches the ball too, so it’s a weird one, that’s all I can say. It’s done now, we would rather focus on the things we can control.
I couldn’t train before that game unfortunately. As I said, I didn’t feel great before Brentford, and I wasn’t feeling any better afterwards, so I couldn’t train before Brighton. But I still wanted to be there, to see how I felt and to be involved if needed. I tried my best when I came on, but to be honest I wasn’t in my best shape. I feel better since then though, so hopefully I am over the worst of it now.
We have got our targets for this year, and of course that means winning a trophy. So tonight’s game is huge as it’s the first opportunity to try and do that. It’s always tricky to try and work out what will be a good result after 90 minutes of a two-legged match, but the main thing is to win the game tonight. That’s what we are going for and then let’s see what happens afterwards, and concentrate on the return leg when that comes around.
Tonight we are focusing on this match, playing at home and putting in a strong performance against a very good side. We are one step away from the final, and it would mean so much to all of us if we could get back to Wembley with a chance of winning a trophy. It’s been our aim for a long time, we spoke about how good we were in the calendar year with our stats and everything, but we want to finish that with a trophy – or as many as possible. We are still in all the competitions and we are going to fight as long as we can in every single one of them.
Read the rest of Martin's notes, as well as a host of other fantastic content, by buying the Arsenal v Newcastle United programme either around the stadium or online.
Copyright 2025 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.
