ODEGAARD BRACE TAKES ARSENAL FIVE POINTS AHEAD OF MAN CITY AT CHRISTMAS

Arsenal lead five points at the top of the Premier League at Christmas with a superb brace from captain Martin Odegaard.

The Gunners obviously knew it was an opportunity to get advantage over Man City with the Manchester club defeat earlier in the day to Brentford, this opened up a lead ahead of the World Cup break.  The Wolves with its character of play were brilliant in defense despite the defeat, constantly resisting pressure from Arsenal’s attack.

It was difficult for Arsenal finding little space to break the defense, but the continued exploits of all attacking right-hand side of Arsenal showed excellent understating and they were patient to keep pushing. Arteta’s tactics this season has been the right –hand side with wing play of Saka which he combined pretty delightfully with Martin Odegaard.

With Arsenal unable to find the back of the net in spite of the effort in the first half, the game went on half time break with the score at 0-0.

The match resumed with Wolves pressuring to score in early stages of the second half, this obviously opened space at the back and it didn’t take long before Gunners went ahead. A superb play from substitute Fabio Vieira who replaced Grant Xhaka in the first half was quick to set up Odegaard to score the first goal in the 54minutes.

Odegaard, Norwegian international, was back again to score his sixth goal of the season in 14 Premier League appearances, although before that, Wolves showed character of a good team especially in defense and could be applauded as tough to break down. But in spite of that Odegaard again found the back of the net after an intelligent play from Gabriel Martinelli.

With the win Arsenal take a comfortable five points lead at Christmas a demonstration of former Manchester City’s assistant coach effort in turnaround team from its last season early stage of the season performance.

The well-deserved lead will see Arsenal return from the international break with 37 points in 14 games, a success Arteta deserves a huge praise. However, Gunners fans will have to wait to find out if he can sustain the momentum after the World Cup.

Meanwhile, Manchester City lost 2-1 at the Etihad Stadium five points behind Arsenal and two points ahead of Newcastle. Newcastle is now third on the table with its sterling performance and obviously a contender for the title when season returns.