Ødegaard is playing better now than in the season Arsenal won the title
Four goals in five games from a captain who managed one across the whole of last season. Arsenal won the league anyway; the question is what happens when he is not diminished.
Arsenal won the Premier League last season for the first time in 24 years and reached the Champions League final. Their captain played most of it well below his own standard. That is the context that makes his current form significant.
Martin Ødegaard has four goals in his last five games. In all of last season, across every competition, he scored one.
What last season looked like for him
Knee and shoulder injuries restricted the Norwegian to 36 appearances. He played only 24 league matches and finished with that single goal and seven assists — a respectable return for most midfielders, and well short of what Arsenal expect from him.
The team won the league regardless. They also became the first side to win all eight of their Champions League league-phase matches, before losing the final to Paris Saint-Germain on penalties.
The arithmetic being done
The argument from those who watch Arsenal closely is simple. If a diminished Ødegaard was compatible with a domestic title and a European final, a fully functioning one raises the ceiling rather than merely restoring it.
His most recent contribution was the only goal at Napoli, a left-footed strike 15 minutes from time that decided a tie Arsenal had dominated without converting. They had missed a hatful of chances before it.
Mikel Arteta pointed afterwards to mentality rather than technique.
"That's what we need — players with that mindset to decide the game and to play with that personality," the manager said.
He described his captain getting into those positions much more often in recent games, and said he has an emotional state in which he knows the ball can go in — adding that Ødegaard now has different relationships around him in the team, which helps.
The caveat
Five games is not a body of evidence. It is September, and Arsenal's problem last season was never an inability to win matches — it was a penalty shootout at the end of the one that mattered most.
What has changed is that the player expected to settle tight games is settling them again.
