‘He’s everywhere!’ – Ryan Giggs reveals his favourite Arsenal player | Football

Manchester United legend Ryan Giggs has praised Martin Odegaard’s outstanding start to the new season and picked out the midfielder as his favourite player at Arsenal.

Odegaard had a largely underwhelming season by his standards last term, managing just one goal while chipping in with six assists across Arsenal’s title-winning campaign in the Premier League.

It represented a major drop-off in return compared to Odegaard’s second and third years at the Emirates, when he provided a significant goal threat and was twice named Arsenal’s Player of the Season.

However, Odegaard has hit the ground running this term, scoring Arsenal’s third goal in the Community Shield before finding the net versus both Coventry City and Chelsea in the Premier League.

The Norwegian’s hot streak continued as he scored the winner in the Gunners’ Champions League victory over Napoli last week, though he was kept quiet for the most part as Mikel Arteta’s men ran out 2-0 winners at Sunderland at the weekend.

Arteta may tempted to give Odegaard a rest for Arsenal’s midweek trip to Ipswich in the Carabao Cup, with the north Londoners back in Premier League action four days later against Brighton at the Amex Stadium.

Giggs knows more than anyone what it takes to win the Premier League having held the trophy aloft a record-breaking 13 times across his illustrious career under the great Sir Alex Ferguson.

Discussing Arsenal’s hopes for the new season on the Rio Ferdinand Presents YouTube channel, the Old Trafford icon revealed just how impressed he had been by the club’s title-winning campaign.

Asked to name his favourite player in Arteta’s squad, Giggs replied: ‘Odegaard at the moment.

‘It looks like he’s controlling games to me, getting it off the back four, running in behind.

‘He’s everywhere! He wins the ball back, he’s defensively very good. Yeah, he just looks strong.’

According to Giggs, Arsenal’s resilient display against Sunderland proved beyond doubt that Arteta’s men are up to the challenge again this season.

‘It’s hard to defend the title so that result [against Sunderland] and that performance showed me that they looked like they’re ready to defend the title,’ he added.

‘Sunderland away after Europe is not an easy game. Sunderland are a good team, they played well and the atmosphere was electric.

‘It was a worldie goal [from Bruno Guimaraes], yeah, but they looked like they were in control, they looked like they’ve got a good squad, they look like they can make four or five substitutions and not weaken… actually, they arguably get stronger. So yeah, they look good.’

Asked why he felt it was more difficult for teams to defend a title, Giggs responded: ‘It just is, everybody wants to beat the champions.

‘You’ve got to have that something within you because it’s hard to win the league, you’ve got to climb that mountain again.

‘Some players are like, “Do I have to do this again?”, because it’s so hard.

‘Last season, with a month to go, Arsenal were [faltering] so you know how hard it is. They were brilliant last season and it’s still hard.

‘It might be the same this season but when you’ve got a squad like that, you just keep it fresh.

‘Manchester United didn’t look fresh [against Manchester City]. They had a game on Thursday, a lot of the players played on Thursday, and it takes a lot of getting used to, that, Champions League and then getting up for a massive game at the weekend. It’s not easy, it takes time to do that.

‘But Arsenal look like they’ve got the squad, they’ve got the manager with that confidence and trust in the players that he can chop and change a few positions.

‘If you want to be a top team you have to have two players in every position and it looks like in most positions Arsenal have two players.’

Arsenal did the double over their next Premier League opponents, Brighton, last season, winning 2-0 at the Emirates before edging past Fabian Hurzeler’s side in a 2-1 victory on the south coast.

It has been a mixed start to the 2026/27 campaign for the Seagulls, with a win, a draw and a loss coming after their thumping 4-0 defeat of Aston Villa on the opening weekend.

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