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…