🦁 Premier League Player of the Week: Viking spirit sends Arsenal clear | OneFootball

It was a scintillating final weekend of action in the Premier League before the World Cup break.

And our Player of the Week is …

Martin Ødegaard (Arsenal)

The list is a long and painful one.

Freddy Adu, Kerlon, Federico Macheda, Jack Rodwell.

All players who burst on to the scene at a ridiculously young age, looked like prodigious talents for a while and then faded away without a trace.

It so easily could have been Martin Ødegaard too, but here we are, almost halfway through the Premier League season, with the Norway international the lynchpin of the best side in the country.

It hasn’t been the most straightforward path to the top though for Ødegaard but it says so much about his mentality that he’s thriving in the Premier League at all.

Ødegaard was just 15 when he joined Real Madrid from Strømsgodset, having turned down Bayern Munich, Liverpool and Arséne Wenger’s Arsenal to go to the Spanish giants.

And he was just 16 years and 157 days old when he made his first team debut against Getafe, becoming the youngest player in the club’s history in the process.

It was however a case of the wrong club at the wrong time for the teenager as he struggled to break into Los Blancos’ first team on a regular basis and was eventually farmed out on loan to Heerenveen and Vitesse in the Eredivisie.

The 2019/20 campaign was a real breakthrough for Ødegaard though, as he starred in a brilliantly dynamic Real Sociedad side.

La Real would finish in sixth that season with the Norwegian playmaker scoring four and registering six assists in 31 games.

That consistency of performance was enough to persuade Arsenal to dip their toe in with a loan in 2021 but since the move was made permanent almost 18 months ago, the 23-year-old has quietly become one of the Gunners star men.

With Bukayo Saka on one side, Gabriel Martinelli on the other and Gabriel Jesus spearheading the attack, the Gunners rightly have a claim to one of the most potent attacks anywhere in Europe.

But this past weekend against Wolves, it was Ødegaard who provided the goals as Mikel Arteta’s side went five points clear at the top of the table.

After a fairly nervy first half, Ødegaard ghosted into the box on 54 minutes and tapped in a Fabio Vieira cross to break the deadlock and the secured the points with 15 minutes remaining by smashing in from 12 yards.

Another Norwegian has been getting all the headlines at Manchester City this term, but could Arsenal’s viking be the one to actually lift the trophy come May?