Arsenal’s Martin Odegaard reveals Champions League motivation

Updated: July 22, 2022 at 1:46 am GMT+1

Arsenal’s Martin Odegaard has revealed his motivation for securing a Champions League place.

The Norwegian is currently on the books of Arsenal, but spent much of his career with Spanish outfit Real Madrid.

During that time, Odegaard was shipped out on loan several times, meaning he did not feature that much in the Champions League.

In fact, the midfielder only played two CL games for Real, both of which came in the group stages of last season’s competition.

As a result, when speaking recently, Odegaard expressed his desire to get Arsenal into the competition as he feels like he hasn’t really played in it before:

“I’ve played there (the Champions League), a few games, but I don’t feel like I’ve really played there,” said Odegaard. “I really want to get into there and fight. That’s where the best teams want to be of course, so that would be big for me and the club.

“We have a young team but I think with the young players we have, we have a lot of experience as well. We’ve been through a lot and we just enjoy playing football together and you can see that on the pitch. We enjoy it.”

Will Arsenal secure Champions League football?

At present, it seems very likely Mikel Arteta’s side will be back in the competition for the first time since 2017 next season.

Arsenal are sat 4^th in the Premier League, four points clear of 5^th-place Tottenham.

So, even if Tottenham do beat Arsenal in the upcoming north London derby, Spurs would still be one point behind their north London rivals with just two games to play.