Darren Bent says £30m Arsenal star ‘doesn’t really want’ to do the ‘ugly stuff’ like Kai Havertz

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In recent weeks, Mikel Arteta has watched his Arsenal players steamroll team after team in the Premier League. 

But on Saturday, the Premier League title-chasers were taken right to the end by relegation-threatened Brentford.

It required a late Kai Havertz header to win the game for Arsenal and send them to the top of the table – following Liverpool’s home draw to Manchester City 24 hours later, it meant that the Gunners remained top. 

Darren Bent noted how the much-criticised summer signing likes to do the ‘ugly stuff’ for Arsenal during games, but Martin Odegaard doesn’t.

The former Tottenham striker, who is a boyhood Arsenal fan, shared that the club captain simply isn’t up to that type of football, as he told Premier League Productions (11/03/24 at 2:35 pm).

The former Real Madrid star doesn’t have the height or physical nature to get stuck in as Kai Havertz or Declan Rice do.

But instead, as Darren Bent pointed out, the £30 million signing brings a ’silky’ touch to proceedings and runs games from the middle of the park.

Kai Havertz and Martin Odegaard

“Do you know what he (Havertz) does, he does a lot of the ugly stuff well,” said Bent.

“When I say that, you look at the amount of headers he wins and he picks up second balls.

“Odegaard doesn’t really want to do. He is more of a silky footballer. You have got Declan Rice doing that number eight job really, really well.”

Can Arsenal win ugly?

This time last season, Arsenal were flying, and for the first time in a long time, the fans were believing that they were going to win the title.

Then the collapse arrived, including players like Odegaard going missing for such crucial stages of the season.

The only way the Arsenal captain and his players can shake this unwanted tag off is by getting over the line in these coming months. 

It’s both a positive and a negative that two other teams are involved in their race. On one hand, the spotlight is elsewhere, but on the other, there is more blockage in front of them.