The Norwegian international Martin Odegaard arrived on loan from Real Madrid with a big reputation of being a future star, but without the benefit of much game time for the Spanish giants.
He arrived at the Spanish capital in 2015 as a teenage sensation according to the media, but in his five years at the club he has only played a total of 8 La Laga games, with 7 of them coming in the first half of this season. Now, at 22 years of age, one would have to say that he has failed to live up to that early promise at Madrid.
But he has certainly impressed Mikel Arteta so far, and despite reports saying that Madrid had no interest in making the loan deal into a permanent move, Arteta refuses to rule out the possibility of Odeagaard becoming a Gunner next summer. Arteta told the Mail: “We have Martin for a few months from Real Madrid and first of all we have to maximise this time with him to try to bring to the team all the qualities he has.
‘At the end of the season we will sit together and decide where we can take that relationship forward. At the moment it doesn’t just depend on us.”
So that sounds like Odegaard is not guaranteed to go back to Spain at the end of the loan after all. Personally I would say he looks good so far, especially as he has had very little time to settle yet, and is far from totally match fit at the moment.
I agree with Arteta that we should see how he develops in the next few months, but it is nice to know that the opportunity to sign him permanently could be on the table come the end of the season…
for 40million or less its worth the risk if madrid and the player are kin on the deal, however anything above that isnt reasonable enough and may put unneccesary pressure on the lad
£40 mill? You are living in cloud cuckoo land if you actually believe we will pay or even can pay, anywhere near that sort of price. Those days are gone, my idealistic friend!
At almost all clubs too besides ours. The former £40 mill deals are now likely to be at best £10 mill or less.
If needs be then sign him on loan for another season, his contracts goes down another year then we can buy him permantly. If Martin wants to join and Madrid need money then we could probably negotiate something but he has a buyout clause of £340m or so apparently so isnt going to be cheap.
Cabellos could be bought also but we will have to cough up £22m and tbh I would sell Lucas Torreira & Mo Elneny to fund most of that move or we let him go back to Madrid and use the money to Sign Bissouma from Brighton. Still Matteo Guendouzi to sell also….
If next season we had a midfield of Partey, Bissouma, Xhaka and Cabellos behind an attacking pair of Ødegaard & SmithRowe feeding the attackers of Saka, Auba, Martinelli, Pepe & New Attacker to replace Laca & Willian wouldn’t be so bad.
Sales of Lucas, Matteo, Mo, Laca & Willain (somehow get rid) would fund most of it!
If we can get rid of willian in the summer it will be a miracle,
Not a big fan of signing these players like willian for free because they demand huge salary and then you can’t get rid of them,
Would like to see odegarrd in cm with Partey…