Martin Odegaard has praised Nottingham Forest as the Arsenal captain prepares to face Steve Cooper’s side this afternoon.
Forest make the trip down to the Emirates Stadium today as Cooper chases a second win in a row.
Last weekend’s 1-0 win over Liverpool has given Forest fans hope of stringing some results together.
That’s still a big ask but Forest head to North London with a little more optimism and confidence than they would have done two weeks ago.
The interesting part here is that Forest actually beat Arsenal last time they met – and it was only earlier this year.
Martin Odegaard has praised Nottingham Forest
Forest hosted Arsenal in the FA Cup third round back in January and claimed a major scalp.
Lewis Grabban fired home from close range to give Forest a 1-0 win and dump the Gunners out.
A repeat performance today would be perfect, even if Grabban has since moved on.
One player who featured that night and played the full 90 minutes was playmaker Martin Odegaard.
Now Arsenal captain, Odegaard is one of just a handful of starters from that night who should start again today.
Ben White, Gabriel Martinelli and Bukayo Saka also look set to start from the team that lost to Forest earlier this year.
Odegaard has now been commenting on Forest and has told Arsenal’s official website that he is expecting a ‘really big test’.
The Norwegian ace is expecting a much different test to the one from January, mostly because Forest have almost completely revamped their squad since that time.
Odegaard did comment on Forest’s summer transfers, claiming that ‘a lot of individual quality’ has been added to Steve Cooper’s squad.
Odegaard also expects Forest to be ‘highly motivated’ with the Arsenal captain seemingly warning his teammates against taking this game lightly.
“We played against Nottingham Forest last season when they knocked us out of the cup, so we know to expect a really big test today,” said Odegaard. “I didn’t manage to watch their game against Liverpool last weekend, we were training at that time, but of course it’s a great result for them, and tells us what we have to be ready for today. We know they have a lot of quality players. They have changed a lot since we played that game in the FA Cup, bringing in a lot of signings, so I expect it to be a very different team to the one we faced in January.”
“It looks like they have added a lot of individual quality to what they already had, and like every team in the Premier League, they have shown they can beat anybody. I played the whole of that FA Cup game last season away at Forest, and I was very impressed with them that day, so if they have improved even more since then, then for sure they will be a difficult test today. They will be highly motivated coming to the Emirates today, with the confidence of their result last weekend as well. It’s up to us to get back to winning ways in the league,” he added.