Thread by @adamvoge

Should #Arsenal sign Martin Odegaard? A quick statistical detour...

No causation/correlation line here, but MØ was undoubtedly part of the turnaround. The club registered 17 points in his 9 PL starts, 1.89 per. Arsenal put up 44 points in its other 29 matches, 1.51 per match.

The latter pace would have gotten them 11th over a full season.

Odegaard's league starts included wins over Leeds, Tottenham and Chelsea, but he did also start the 0-3 drubbing to Liverpool (Xhaka, Luiz and Saka all missed) and the 1-1 draw to Burnley, one of Arsenal's worst finishing performances of the season.

Some stats:
-Odegaard made 21 key passes in just under 10 PL 90s. At that rate, he would've led the club had he played 17.8 90s. The team leader, Saka, played 28.4 90s and made 38 KPs. If his rate stayed steady, MØ would have made 62 in that time, good for 11th in the Prem.

Completed passes into the penalty area is a similar story. MØ had 18, four more than ESR in just under 2/3 of his play time. At 1.88 completed passes into the pen area per 90 minutes, Odegaard was second to only...Willian.

Alright, how about something a little more concrete? Odegaard performed 6 goal-creating actions in his 9.6 90s, .62 per 90 minutes. He created .52 goals per 90 from live balls, the highest mark on the club by a healthy .14 (Smith Rowe). Jack Grealish led the Prem at .70.

MØ was also the top shot-creator in the club, with 4.36 SCAs per 90. If he had qualified for the EPL leaderboard, he would have been just below...James Maddison. Interestingly, MØ made 81 percent of his SCAs from live balls, while JM made 57 percent of his from live balls.

More good: MØ made 69 pressures in the attacking third (nice). That's two less than Willian. Per 90, his 7.19 pressures in the attacking third would be second to only Lacazette among qualifiers (Martinelli only had 6.5 90s but put up 11.1 per 90).

Now some of the less rosy numbers:
--Team xG +/- put MØ at +.27 per 90 in the Prem, below many of the club's regular starters, including many who went through that December slump. ESR was the leader among regular starters, at +0.65.

And the one that bugs a lot of people, I think: shooting.
-MØ shot 15 times in his ~10 90s worth of minutes, a little over 1.5 shots per 90. That would be fifth-most frequent among qualifiers (Pepe-Auba-Saka-Laca).

MØ put the ball on target just 20 percent of the time, 3/15. He actually had an incredible 9 of those shots blocked! People are justifiably attracted to Maddison's shooting. After all, he shoots closer to 30% on target and consistently rates as an above-average-to-good finisher.

So should Arsenal sign MØ? I don't know! They were good with him in the lineup, but how much of that is his influence is difficult to determine. One thing that's easy to decipher: The club needs someone who can do a lot of the things he can do, and maybe even a little bit more.