Odegaard urges Gooners to bring the noise again

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 today's game against Newcastle United, the skipper discussed the Emirates Stadium atmosphere, our recent big wins away from home and why he took a photo of our club photographer after the Liverpool win!

Everyone is so hyped to come back to the Emirates tonight, and I know the supporters will be on fire for another big game under the lights.

I think it will be a special one. You can see the impact our supporters are having on the games now, every time we play. You see it on the pitch – and every time we play now the players feel the connection with our supporters and it’s so important to us. You all help to bring the noise, the energy and the fire in the game, so we need you again tonight – because this is something we want to do together.

Of course, the defeat at St James’ Park earlier this season can be used as extra motivation, but most importantly for us, we want to keep playing our football, keep creating chances, keep scoring goals, and at the same time carry on how well we’ve been defending in our recent league games. It’s a good moment to do that again at home tonight.

Personally I love these night games, the atmosphere always feels more intense and special. Let’s see if we can create a feeling and noise inside the stadium like we did in the last game here, against Liverpool.

That was an amazing game – just a beautiful day because of the result and the atmosphere. I think it’s maybe the best atmosphere I’ve witnessed in my life. When you play in games like that at home, in front of your own supporters, and get an important win too – it’s such an amazing feeling. We all enjoyed it so much, it was a beautiful day.

Afterwards you saw me taking pictures with our club photographer Stuart, and that was just something I thought about in the moment. Like so many of our colleagues, he’s always there with us, he’s been here such a long time, he’s a big supporter who’s been through the ups and downs but is always there for us, capturing those special moments when we celebrate, so I thought why not take one of him this time? Hopefully it was a good moment for him too. I’m not too sure how the pictures came out though – maybe I should stick to the football rather than the photography!

It was a good day for us though, and as I said, an important win, so it was great that we were able to follow it up with those big away wins over West Ham and then Burnley. Both are difficult places to go, so to dominate the way we did, and to play our football in both those matches is really positive. It was brilliant, not just the goals we scored, but creating lots of chances, keeping a clean sheet in both as well – it’s what we want to do.

The last few games in the league have been brilliant, we have to keep going like that now. For me personally I was pleased to get a goal against Burnley, because it’s been a while for me since I’d scored. I really wanted to score again, so to do it early in the game felt good, and it was a good strike – I’m happy with that one!

Read the rest of Martin's notes, as well as a host of other fantastic content, by buying a copy of the Arsenal v Newcastle programme either around the stadium or online