Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta has found his own Van Persie in Odegaard

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Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta has been told that he has found the club’s next Robin van Persie through his captain Martin Odegaard. The Netherlands striker spent eight successful years in north London under Arsene Wenger, before moving to Manchester United to win the Premier League title in 2013.

Van Persie scored over 100 goals during his time at the Gunners and went on to skipper the side in his latter years, while the armband has since been picked up by Odegaard. The Norwegian playmaker has been a key figure for Arsenal this season, who are currently top of the league table, and his displays have shown that he can be an important player in their title charge.

Odegaard has often been compared to ex-Arsenal midfielder Cesc Fabregas as both players have been adept at finding their team-mates with ease, but former Gunners defender Bacary Saga has rejected those claims and instead compared him to Van Persie.

“No he doesn’t remind me of Fabregas,” Sagna told Lord Ping. “If anything, I think he is more like Robin van Persie because of the technical quality that he has. You can see that Odegaard wants to play with his style and that he hates losing.

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“He wants to be in control of the ball all of the time. He is very demanding of himself and also the other players, and Robin was exactly the same. Robin wanted his teammates to shine even more and he had a natural self-confidence, which is how I feel about Odegaard. Even though he is still young, you can tell what he wants on the pitch.”

Aside from his assists, Odegaard has scored seven league goals so far this campaign and is the club’s joint-top goalscorer in the division. Sagna believes that he is Arsenal’s player of the year so far, and his loan spell at the club under Arteta indicated that his future was going to be at the Emirates.

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“I think he has been Arsenal’s best player this season,” he continued. “He is the key player at the club. He creates so much and links everything together. The way that he has played this season has been magnificent.

“I think he is a very smart player. He doesn’t necessarily carry the ball, but he makes other players shine. He is the type of player that makes everyone perform better and he is delivering the final pass perfectly.

“He is a player that has had a lot of attention on him throughout his career because he signed for Real Madrid when he was so young. When he joined the club on loan, he was great and you could tell that when he signed permanently he really wanted to be at Arsenal. I think you can see that he loves the club and he wants to give something back to Arsenal.”

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