Martin Odegaard: Arsenal's Reborn Captain in Champions League

Martin Odegaard is not just back. He looks reborn.

At the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona on Wednesday night, the Arsenal captain again carried the decisive touch, smashing in the only goal of the game as Mikel Arteta’s side beat Napoli in the Champions League. Four goals in five games now, across all competitions. The same player who found the net just once in an injury-ravaged 2025/26 season is suddenly Arsenal’s sharpest finisher.

Arteta is in no doubt about why.

“First of all he needs to be available and last year he missed so many games through injuries,” the Arsenal manager said afterwards, pointing straight at fitness as the foundation for this version of Odegaard. Take away the niggles, give him rhythm, and the picture changes.

But this is not just about a healthy captain. It’s about where he is on the pitch and who is around him.

A new role, a new edge

Arteta has nudged Odegaard into different zones, higher up the pitch and in more dangerous pockets. The numbers tell the story. His touches in the opposition box have leapt from 2.5 per 90 minutes last season to 4.3 per 90 this term. That’s not a tweak. That’s a rewire.

“He’s got that edge and different relationships around him as well and that helps,” said Arteta. “He can start to go by different heights in the team, especially in the attacking phase, and when we get him into those positions he’s a really dangerous player.”

The “different relationships” are crucial. Arsenal now have more players who can carry and progress the ball through the thirds, freeing Odegaard to roam closer to goal instead of constantly dropping deep to knit play together.

“We have a lot of players that can take the ball there and progress the ball much better than we did in the past,” Arteta explained. “When that happens, [Odegaard] needs to take different heights and angles and positions in order to disorganise the opponent and he’s done that really well.”

Christos Tzolis is at the heart of that shift. The summer signing already has four assists; three of them have set up Odegaard. He was the provider again in Naples, slipping the ball into the captain’s path for the winner after a flowing move.

And it’s not just one flank or one combination. Arsenal’s attack stretched Napoli in every direction, down both wings and straight through the middle. The Italians backed off, then backed off some more.

Arsenal on the front foot

The shot count underlined the dominance. Arsenal racked up 26 attempts, their highest total in a Champions League game on record since 2003/04. The expected goals figure of 4.05 screamed that the margin should have been far greater.

The goal that did arrive summed up the new Odegaard perfectly. A 29-pass move, Napoli chasing shadows, the captain hovering on the edge of the box, then thundering the ball home. Clinical, confident, ruthless.

“That’s what we need,” said Arteta. “The players with the mindset to decide a game and play with personality. To keep taking chances and risks.

“He’s getting into those positions much more in recent games and now you feel he has the emotional state that he knows the ball can go in, and he scored an incredible goal tonight.”

That “emotional state” matters. Odegaard looks like a player who expects to score, not hopes to.

Everything runs through the captain

From the first whistle in Naples, Odegaard demanded the ball. He drifted between the lines, pulled Napoli’s midfield out of shape, then threaded passes through the gaps. He oozed control.

By full-time he had more touches, more passes and more chances created than any other player on the pitch. Napoli simply could not get tight enough to him often enough.

One moment captured his vision: a delicate scooped pass over a packed defence to release Ben White, who squared for Piero Hincapie, only for the chance to be somehow squandered. It was just one of several flashes of ingenuity from the Norwegian, each one chiselling away at Napoli’s defensive block.

He played with freedom. He played with flair. And he played with a conviction that dragged his team up the pitch.

“Martin is contributing goals,” Arteta added. “That is obviously impacting results which is what we want from our attacking players, to be decisive, and certainly he was that today.”

Arsenal are feeling the benefit. A captain fully fit, pushed higher, surrounded by team-mates who can feed him the ball in the right areas. If this is the new normal for Odegaard, the question is no longer whether he can sustain it.

It’s how far this version of him can take Arsenal.