Arsenal captain Martin Odegaard names his toughest ever opponent in the Premier League
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Arsenal captain Martin Odegaard has picked out Liverpool defender Virgil van Dijk as the ‘toughest’ opponent he has ever faced in his career.
Having impressed on loan, Odegaard joined Arsenal on a permanent basis three years ago and the 25-year-old has established himself as one of the finest midfielders in Premier League football in that time.
The Gunners struggled as Odegaard missed 12 games through injury this season, with Mikel Arteta’s men clearly lacking creativity in the middle of the park and dropping valuable points in the Premier League title race.
But Odegaard appeared to be back to his best in the side’s comprehensive 3-0 win over Nottingham Forest at the weekend, setting up Bukayo Saka to register his second assist in as many games.
This evening, Odegaard is expected to lead Arsenal out away to Sporting in the Champions League and the Norwegian will be no doubt be eager to continue his strong run of form after a frustrating injury layoff.
Since bursting onto the scene as a youngster, Odegaard has come up against a host of the world’s finest defenders across his career, which started back in 2013 with Stromsgodset, when, remarkably, the midfielder was aged just 13.
But in a quickfire Q&A with TNT Sports, Odegaard said Liverpool skipper Van Dijk stood out above the rest as the toughest player he had faced since his breakthrough 11 years ago.
Asked to name the toughest ever opponent, Odegaard replied: ‘I think Virgil is a really tough one.’
Elsewhere in the interview, Odegaard named Zinedine Zidane as his most famous phone contact, Kai Havertz as his best friend in football and Thierry Henry as Arsenal’s greatest player of all time.
The Norway international also picked out Arsenal’s black kit from the 2022/23 season as his favourite from his time in top-level football.
Van Dijk took many fans by surprise when asked to reveal his toughest ever opponent earlier this year, with the Liverpool and Netherlands centre-back naming Olivier Giroud as his ‘bogeyman’.
Quizzed on his toughest opponent, the Dutchman replied: 'Olivier Giroud. Every time, you think you've got a hold of him, that you've got him well marked, but he always manages to score in one way or another: with his head, his foot, his knee.
'He has often scored against me.
'I always felt like I got him, but somehow, he always managed to score. Whether it was for Arsenal, Chelsea or France, he always scored.'
Van Dijk revealed a joke he with Giroud after Liverpool's 5-3 win over Chelsea back in July 2020.
'I said to him when we won the Premier League, we won 5-3 we were 3-0 up or something and he scored a scrappy goal, I think it was against the crossbar and fell down, scrappy goal, I said to him: "You scored again?!",’ he explained.
'So I would say he is the guy that scores against me, and just that annoying person.'
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