Arsenal proved they didn't need Odegaard and Rice to seal victory in the North London Derby
09/16/2024 05:30 AM
There was concern surrounding The Gunners North London derby due to a couple of pivotal key players missing.
Declan Rice was suspended following his sending off versus Brighton before the International Break, and captain Martin Odegaard picked up an ankle injury during the break for Norway inconveniently .
Rice will be available for Arsenals next Premier League test against Manchester City next Sunday, however, no one knows how long Odegaard will be out for but FOOTBALL TALK mentioned he'll be out of action for at least 21 days.
The two players have formed one of the greatest midfield partnerships currently and The Gunners have thoroughly relied upon it at times.
Both of them together flexed their attacking and defensive might last season, which is still relied upon. At the end of the last Premier League campaign Odegaard picked up more assists (10) than any other Gunner and Rice performed the most tackles (83) in the side.
Despite the two being heavily relied upon to form Mikel Arteta's middle of the park, it coped without them during the much anticipated match against arch rivals Spurs.
Odegaard and Rice were both replaced by Leandro Trossard and Jorginho who would go onto help Arsenal beat Spurs 1-0 with Gabriel heading in the winner ferociously from a corner.
Although Jorginho was on the winning side not all fans on X were convinced by the Italians performance and he was harsly criticised on Twitter.
There were also other comments on the social media platform which hinted towards disapproval of Arteta's decision to choose the midfielder, but at the end of the day he was always going to be compared against two of the best midfielders in the world, who are an integral part of Arsenals title chasing team.
Unfortunately his ratings by the media weren't much better either.
The Evening Standard handed him 6/10 which was one of the lowest scores in the whole team and described his performance stating he "struggled to control the game, but worked tirelessly off it."
Trossard was on a similar level according to the newspaper who also gave him a 6/10 rating. They said he "started as a striker as Arteta mixed up his formation. Played through a couple of dangerous balls for Havertz. Busy off the ball."
Sky was more impressed on the other hand by the two replacements handing them both 7/10 ratings.
However after 90 minutes Arsenal proved they were capable at clinching glory in the big matches without two of their midfield diamonds.
Liam Harding
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