Odegaard to captain us for 100th time at Fulham | Statistics | News

17 days ago

Arsenal.com

Should Martin Odegaard walk out at Craven Cottage against Fulham on Sunday donning our captain’s armband as usual, it will be a momentous occasion for our skipper.

That’s because it’ll be the 100th time he has captained us in competitive action, on what would be his 163rd appearance in red and white - a remarkable feat for a player who is still only 25 years old.

The first time was at Southampton in March 2022 and he has held it ever since. "I had a short conversation with Mikel just before the game - that was it basically!” he has previously reflected.

"It was a big honour. To get that trust from the manager and the whole club after being here for just one year was huge, so it made me feel good. I was happy and proud about it. I stepped in and tried to do as well as possible.”

And Martin has done much better than that, as he has created history whilst holding the captaincy.

Our friends at Opta have calculated the Norwegian has guided us to victory on 66 of the 99 occasions he has led the team out, and that win percentage of 66.7% is the highest any Arsenal captain who has skipped us 20 or more times has managed since our famous title-winning campaign of 1988/89.

That puts him ahead of legendary leaders such as Tony Adams, Patrick Vieira and Thierry Henry, and also Mikel Arteta who sits a respectable fourth on the list, while also boasting the best win percentage of any Gunners manager.

Martin will become only the fifth player to captain us in a century of matches since 1989, with Adams, Vieira, Per Mertesacker and Laurent Koscielny also achieving the feat:

Arsenal captains' win % since 1988/89 (min 20 games) Player P W Win % Martin Odegaard 99 66 66.7% Alexandre Lacazette 32 21 65.6% Petr Cech 25 16 64.0% Mikel Arteta 57 36 63.2% Per Mertesacker 102 63 61.8% Kolo Toure 31 19 61.3% Patrick Vieira 170 102 60.0% Cesc Fabregas 81 48 59.3% Manuel Almunia 24 14 58.3% Thierry Henry 69 38 55.1% Laurent Koscielny 108 59 54.6% William Gallas 57 31 54.4% Tony Adams 528 277 52.5% Nigel Winterburn 33 17 51.5% Robin van Persie 61 31 50.8% Granit Xhaka 28 14 50.0% Gilberto Silva 31 15 48.4% Martin Keown 29 14 48.3% Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang 76 35 46.1% Steve Bould 37 16 43.2% Thomas Vermaelen 49 21 42.9% Lee Dixon 49 20 40.8%