![]() ![]() ![]() For more information see our Privacy Policy. Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. Newcastle hopes almost palpably left the stadium and they never quite recovered, in part because Ødegaard’s subsequent passing kept threatening to unpick their high line, forcing them to drop deeper. It produced a moment of disconcerting silence that was only intensified by the distant hum of Arsenal celebrations high in the Leazes End. Excellent as Jorginho was alongside him in midfield, it was Ødegaard who offered a threat, Ødegaard who made Newcastle nervous.Īrsenal had barely been out of their half in an opening 14 minutes in which Newcastle had hit the post and seen a penalty taken from them by VAR, when Ødegaard took Jorginho’s pass 25 yards out and clipped a precisely low shot past an unsighted Nick Pope and into the bottom corner. It makes him very special.” Mainly, though, Ødegaard leads by example. But when he says something, the message comes very clearly to us players. He is very humble, he is quiet as a person, he is not someone who talks a lot, and he does not talk very loudly. “You need to understand what to say, when to say it, and to whom to say it. “You do not have to scream to be a captain,” Granit Xhaka has said of Ødegaard. But it was the Norwegian who led the fightback against Southampton and as tempers frayed in the first half at St James’ Park, Newcastle apparently appalled that teams other than them should time waste and feign injury (cheap jibes aside, this a growing problem across the league that needs urgent resolution), it was his calmness that stood out. That it was so eye-catching an indication spoke perhaps of how unexpected it was, how out of character it seemed. Ødegaard’s level dropped as much as anybody’s in those costly second halves against Liverpool and West Ham, as his passing went awry. And resolve, however futile it may prove, is never a bad attribute for a team to demonstrate. If Arsenal had failed to keep up at least the semblance of a pursuit they would never forgive themselves. Imagine Frank Lampard, the last visiting manager to avoid defeat at the Etihad Stadium, does it again. Whatever happens, there will be regrets at the two-goal leads lost against Liverpool and West Ham, at the two-goal lead given up to Southampton, but to have fallen away completely would have felt a betrayal of the start of this season. It is very unlikely that City will slip up against Everton or Chelsea, but if they do Arsenal at least remain in a position from which they can take advantage. The result is that there is a glow in the embers of Arsenal’s title challenge yet and that it is not, as it might have been, possible for Manchester City to be confirmed as champions next Sunday. It’s not just his passing, although that is obviously exceptional or his goals, of which he now has 15 this season it’s the air of authority he projects. While others might have lost their heads amid a frenetic opening at St James’ Parkon Sunday, he retained his composure and slowly wrested the game his way. He seems to have been around for an eternity, plays with an elegant maturity, and yet this is only his third full season of football for a club in one of Europe’s top six leagues. It is eight years since Ødegaard, clad in a striped top he had grabbed from his bedroom floor, hair uncombed, weary from the flight, was whisked straight from the airport to a press conference at which he was presented as a Real Madrid player. ![]()
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