🚨 Martin Ødegaard on Arsenal’s 2-1 win over Chelsea:
🗣️ Reporter: “Martin, as captain, what was going through your mind after the final whistle yesterday? You looked relieved, but also very serious.”
🗣️ Ødegaard:
“Honestly, I was thinking about how much that game demanded from us.
When you play against Chelsea, especially in a game like that, you know there will be moments where you have to suffer. There will be moments where you have to defend, moments where you have to stay calm, and moments where you have to make the right decision even when your legs are tired.
So when the referee blew the whistle, I was happy because we had done our job.
But I was also thinking, ‘This is what we have to be like.’
Not just when everything is going well.
I’ve been at this club long enough to understand that the expectations are different now. People expect us to compete for the biggest things, and honestly, that’s exactly how it should be.
As captain, I feel that responsibility every day.
Before the game, I told the players that Chelsea would have their moments. I told them not to panic when the game became difficult because football is never going to be comfortable for 90 minutes.
And yesterday, I saw something I really liked.
Nobody dropped their head.
Nobody started blaming another player.
We stayed together.
That matters more to me than anything.
Because we’ve had games in the past where maybe we played well but didn't get the result we deserved. We’ve had moments where we were disappointed afterwards and asked ourselves what we could have done differently.
You learn from those moments.
You have to.
I don't want us to become a team that is happy just because we played well.
I want us to become a team that knows how to win when the game is ugly, when the pressure is high, when the opponent is pushing and when everything isn't going exactly as planned.
That's what separates good teams from teams that actually win trophies.
So yes, I enjoyed yesterday.
I enjoyed seeing the supporters celebrating.
I enjoyed seeing the boys in the dressing room.
But this morning, it was already finished in my head.
Three points.
Good.
Now we move on.
Because if you want to achieve something serious, you cannot spend three days celebrating one victory.
You have to keep going.
And that's the mentality I want everyone in this dressing room to have.
We don't want to be remembered as the team that was always close.
We want to be the team that finally finished the job.”