Mikel Arteta celebrated six years as Arsenal head coach in December, inheriting a team that was struggling to find its identity following Arsene Wenger’s departure 18 months earlier.
He would become the first Arsenal manager since George Graham in 1987 to win a trophy in his first season in charge when his side lifted the FA Cup in May 2020 and after three consecutive second-place finishes, his side are well-placed to win their first Premier League title for 22 years, ahead of the run-in.
It is clear that the 43-year-old has the respect and admiration of his players, starting with skipper Martin Odegaard.
Odegaard on his Arteta admiration
“He gives absolutely everything,” Odegaard tells FourFourTwo. “He always demands the best from everyone.
“Especially in games, when something doesn’t go our way, the way he sees football – his tactical awareness, his understanding of what’s needed to change a game, to get out of a difficult moment or turn things around – it’s something I’ve never seen before.”
“The way he understands the game and the way he transmits that to us is massive. It helps us so much in difficult moments. There are so many things he’s told me or noticed that I had never even thought about. Then you do it, and it just makes sense.
“You realise how much it gives you. Sometimes it’s a small detail, sometimes it’s a big thing – but there are things you never thought were that important until he shows you. The details he sees are unbelievable.
“In my position, it’s so often about movement. Sometimes it’s the angle of a run. Maybe I go a little to the right and he tells me it needs to be more to the left – or to follow the man first and then go the left. Small things like that. Little tweaks in how you attack space, how you ask for the ball.”
Odegaard has brought other elements from elsewhere; habits shaped by years of guidance from his father and lessons absorbed at previous clubs. Above all, it’s about playing, and controlling, football on his own terms.
“That’s really important,” he says. “In football you need to control the tempo, control the speed of the game. You need to know when to speed it up and when to slow it down. Sometimes you have to play quickly to use the space in the right way. Then at other times you need to slow it down, take another touch and wait for the right moment. That balance is crucial.”
It was Arteta who brought Odegaard to Arsenal, initially on loan from Real Madrid in January 2021, at a moment when the midfielder was struggling to live up to the early hype after arriving at the Bernabeu as a 16-year-old in 2015.
One conversation with Arteta, conducted over Zoom, proved decisive.
“I was very clear as soon as I spoke to him,” Odegaard says. “After talking with him and [technical director] Edu, I was convinced it was the right step for me – what he told me about what he wanted to do with the team, with the club, how he saw me as a player, how I’d fit in.
“It was the way he spoke about football, the passion that he had – I was never in doubt after that conversation.”
Martin Odegaard's full exclusive interview is in this month's (March 2026 - Issue #388) edition of FourFourTwo.
