Former Gunners captain Martin Keown has held up some valid reservations against the signing of Martin Odegaard.
The young playmaker has joined Arsenal on loan from Real Madrid but Keown feels he will now eat into the position which was being developed for Gunners’ academy star Emile Smith-Rowe.
“A lot of the problems for the Arsenal team is finding that spare player.
“It’s been Smith Rowe in the recent run. Odegaard has been given the luxury of playing in there.
“We’re still waiting to see, I think there’s a player under there but he’s not played much football for Real Madrid, maybe seven or eight games this season, maybe a bit short of fitness.
“But if you don’t give him the ball you can’t see what he’s capable of, but there were moments when he had the ball, good passes.
“He does really well for the goal, he’s a player they want to try and build around.”
Keown further added: “The reservations I have is Smith Rowe was playing especially well in that position.
“Now, perhaps he [Arteta] didn’t feel he was getting enough from [Nicolas] Pepe defensively so Smith Rowe’s gone into that position.
“Now you’ve got Saka and Smith Rowe in wide positions.
“They have really good movement, tuck inside nicely, they give that space for the full-backs to get wide and they know when to press.
“But maybe they lose a little bit, for the time being, until Odegaard is ready to match speed. There were glimpses of really good play.”
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