Mikel Arteta has hinted that Martin Odegaard could be Arsenal's next captain as the Norwegian wore the armband against Southampton.
Alexandre Lacazette replaced Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang as skipper on a temporary basis after the Gabon striker was stripped of the captaincy before leaving for Barcelona in January. It is unlikely he will take the role on a permanent basis with the Frenchman set to leave as a free agent in the summer.
Kieran Tierney appeared to be in pole position as he wore the armband on several occasions when Lacazette has been substituted. But with both players missing from Arsenal's trip to St. Mary's, Odegaard was given the honour, unfortunately resulting in a 1-0 defeat.
And Arteta says the Norwegian who has been a standout performer for the Gunners this season hinted that it won't be the last time he'll wear the armband, confirming he is in the running to be named the next captain.
He said: “Time will tell. The most important thing is the respect and admiration from his teammates. He represents everything we want in this club. He is a good option.”
Arsenal wasted a glorious opportunity to make boost their top-four aspirations after Tottenham's 1-0 defeat by Brighton earlier on Saturday. But Jan Bednarek sealed a brilliant bounceback 1-0 win over the north Londoners following their 6-0 defeat to Chelsea last weekend.
Arteta found it hard to figure out how his side didn't get on the scoresheet despite several opportunities. He said: Difficult to explain because this is football, not basketball. Because any other sport you win the game very comfortably and you’re talking about different things. Difficult to explain but at the end of the day it’s decided in the boxes. They scored one goal, we didn’t.
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"For the amount of time that we spent around the box it shows that we have a situation, we didn’t put them in the goal. Because they have an exceptional goalkeeper today and because we didn’t have enough quality and enough capacity to break them down when we had the numbers and the situations open to do so.
Asked how big of an opportunity it was to pick up three points given Spurs' result, he replied: "Huge. If you’re somebody who doesn’t know the result and was watching the game, you know what they would tell you - that Arsenal won the game. And we didn’t. It’s very disappointing and difficult to explain with words but this is sport, it’s what makes it different to any other. In basketball you have 25 shots, the opponent has one and you win ten out of ten times."
