‘Not good enough’ – Martin Odegaard criticises Arsenal’s finishing but calls for cool heads after Manchester City setback

Martin Odegaard says Arsenal’s finishing against Manchester City was ‘not good enough’ but has called for cool heads after the Gunners lost their place at the top of the Premier League.

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Arsenal’s five-month stay at the top of the English top-flight was ended on Wednesday night as defending champions Manchester City won 3-1 at the Emirates Stadium to leapfrog Mikel Arteta’s side in the table.

It was all to play for with 20 minutes remaining after Kevin de Bruyne and Bukayo Saka both scored first-half goals, but City asserted their dominance late on and took the points back to Manchester thanks to goals from Jack Grealish and Erling Haaland.

Odegaard admits it was a ‘frustrating’ evening for an Arsenal side aiming to win the Premier League for the first time since 2004 and says the team’s efficiency in the final third was ‘not good enough’.

‘It was a good game between two good teams, an unbelievable atmosphere. It was nice to play in, but it was of course a frustrating result,’ Odegaard told Arsenal Player.

‘I think we did a lot of good things but in front of goal, we weren’t good enough. That’s frustrating but at the same time, we did a lot of good things, so we have to take those.

‘I think everyone had a feeling that we were doing well at half-time, that we had a lot of space to play in. We needed a few adjustments to improve a few things.

‘In general, I thought the game we played was pretty okay, but in front of goal it wasn’t good enough.

‘Thank you so much to everyone who came and for everything they did to help us today. We’ll work very hard to give them something to hopefully be happy about on Saturday.’

While it was a significant setback for Arsenal, the Gunners will climb back above