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Real Madrid midfielder Martin Odegaard is reportedly all set to spend at least one more season at Arsenal. The Norwegian joined Arsenal on a year-long loan last season and impressed Mikel Arteta, who had placed Odegaard at the top of his transfer wish list.
Odegaard was left out of the Real Madrid squad for their 4-1 La Liga win over Alaves. This has further fuelled reports that he is approaching a move to Arsenal.
According to Mirror, the 22-year-old's agents are in London to finalize the move. The aforementioned report claims that Odegaard will join Arsenal on another season-long loan and the Premier League giants will have the option of making the move permanent for £30 million.
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Real Madrid had deemed Odegaard surplus to requirements, which fast-tracked the transfer. That Arsenal had reportedly failed to match Leicester City's £60 million valuation of attacking midfielder James Maddison played a part in it too.
Arsenal have signed Ben White, Albert Sambi Lokonga and Nuno Tavares in the ongoing summer transfer window. They, however, couldn't help the club start their Premier League season on a positive note, succumbing to a 2-0 defeat to newly-promoted Brentford.
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Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta was left impressed with Martin Odegaard's performances last season
Odegaard made 20 appearances for Arsenal across competitions last season, scoring two and assisting as many goals. That was enough for Arteta to seriously consider signing the young midfielder.
In May earlier this year, Arteta accepted that Arsenal are indeed interested in bringing Odegaard back to the Emirates for the 2021-22 season.
"We have a very clear and strong opinion on what we’d like to do. He’s not our player, we will have discussions in the next few weeks. We respect he’s a Real Madrid player and will have those communications.
"We’ve tried to make everything that we could to get Martin performing for the team, which I think he’s done, and he’s adapted really well to our way of playing and our football club.
"Hopefully, we have given him the hope and the feeling that this could be a good place for him here," Arteta had said.
