@ngreportstv: 🚨 Martin Odegaard on why Arsenal’s players are enjoying Noni Madueke so much: “Noni asked me once, ‘When I get past him, where are you going to be?’ “I said, ‘That depends. Are you going past him on the inside or the outside?’ “He said, ‘I haven’t decided.’ “I told him, ‘Then you’re making this quite difficult for your captain.’ “That’s a nice problem to have. You want a winger who makes the defender wait for the answer as well. “What I’ve enjoyed is learning when to go towards him and when to leave him space. Sometimes the best help you can give Noni is taking your man away. He’s got somebody in front of him, he’s facing the right way, and he wants that contest. “You don’t need to arrive with another defender and make it a group activity. “But he’s also getting very good at bringing us into it. The little return pass, the cross before everybody’s set, knowing when somebody else has the better position. When you play close to him, you feel those decisions. “I said to him after one training session, ‘You could have taken him on again there.’ “He said, ‘You were free.’ “I said, ‘I know. I appreciated it.’ “He looked at me as if I’d thanked him for passing the salt. “‘You’d do the same.’ “That’s how you want it to feel. Natural. We’re trying to make each other dangerous. “There’s a lot of conversation about Bukayo whenever Noni plays well. Inside the team, we’re pleased we have both. If Noni beats somebody and makes something happen, Bukayo wants the same thing the rest of us want. A red shirt on the end of it. “Noni deserves to enjoy what he’s doing under his own name. He’s earned that with the way he’s playing. “You can feel the supporters responding as well. When he receives it now, there’s that little change in the noise. People think something might happen. That’s a lovely thing for a player to give a stadium. “But it also comes with responsibility. At nil-nil, after a few good saves, you can feel everybody wanting the next attack to be the one. “I went over to him and said, ‘Keep going.’ “He said, ‘He’s saving everything.’ “I said, ‘Then make him save another.’ “It wasn’t a complicated conversation. Sometimes you don’t need one. He was getting into the positions we wanted. The goalkeeper was doing his job very well. We needed to keep doing ours. “For the goal, when Noni got the ball on the right, I started thinking about the next action. He shifted it, came inside and hit it. I wanted to be there if the ball came back. “When somebody’s been striking it like that, you run towards the goalkeeper. You give yourself the chance to finish what your teammate has started. “The ball came loose and I got there. “People will see my name next to the goal. I know whose work brought the chance into the box. I had a few metres to attack. Noni had been asking questions of that defence all afternoon. “When I reached him, I said, ‘I told you. Make him save another.’ “He said, ‘You’re welcome.’ “I said, ‘I still had to score.’ “He said, ‘Yes, captain.’ “He was smiling. I liked that. “You want your teammates to feel how much their work matters, especially when the reward goes next to somebody else’s name. He could have spent that moment frustrated that the keeper had stopped him again. “Instead, we were celebrating together. “The next time he gets it on that side, I’ll be making the run again. “And if he wants to decide which way he’s going a little earlier, he’s welcome to tell me.”

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Saturday 07 November 2026 19:18:32 GMT