{"id":799,"date":"2026-04-23T15:50:04","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T15:50:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/esport.com.ng\/?p=799"},"modified":"2026-04-23T15:50:04","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T15:50:04","slug":"roy-keane-says-tidy-arsenal-midfielder-not-enough-as-andrea-berta-finds-two-replacements","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/esport.com.ng\/?p=799","title":{"rendered":"Roy Keane says \u2018tidy\u2019 Arsenal midfielder not \u2018enough\u2019 as Andrea Berta finds two replacements"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div><!-- Article Start --><\/p>\n<p>Manchester United legend Roy Keane had dismissed Arsenal attacking midfielder Martin Odegaard following the defeat to Manchester City last weekend, as the Gunners\u2019 sporting director Andrea Berta identifies two players to eventually take his place in Mikel Arteta\u2019s team.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arsenal<\/strong> suffered a damaging 2-1 defeat to Man City at the Etihad Stadium in the Premier League last weekend.<\/p>\n<p>With Man City beating Burnley 1-0 at Turf Moor in the league on Wednesday evening, Arsenal are now second in the table on goals scored.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Odegaard<\/strong> returned to the Arsenal starting line-up against Man City after missing the previous two games due to injury.<\/p>\n<p>The Arsenal captain gave four key passes and often dropped deep to initiate attacks for the north London club.<\/p>\n<p>However, former Man Utd midfielder Keane was not impressed, and neither was journalist Henry Winter, <strong>who noted after the game<\/strong>: \u201cOdegaard embodies Arsenal\u2019s nice, neat football but doesn\u2019t hurt elite opponents enough.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>READ: Arsenal \u2018in touch\u2019 to sign \u2018the best midfielder in the world\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>When Arsenal legend Ian Wright was outlining on <em>The Overlap<\/em> what he would have done differently for the team against Man City, Keane quipped that although Odegaard is \u201ctidy\u201d, he needs to do more.<\/p>\n<p>Wright said: \u201cI would have put Declan in Zubimendi\u2019s position. I would put Odegaard in where Declan is, and then I would put Eze as a 10.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Keane observed: \u201cI still don\u2019t think Odegaard is enough. He\u2019s neat and tidy and he\u2019s good but\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p><smartframe-embed customer-id=\"0b629b85ba2abe5ff39df9829ee5fb57\" image-id=\"mcfcJObL14xl\" style=\"width: 100%; display: inline-flex; max-width: 100%;\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Arsenal have two Martin Odegaard replacements in mind<\/p>\n<p>Odegaard is 27 now and is under contract at Arsenal until the summer of 2028.<\/p>\n<p><strong>READ MORE: Danny Murphy says \u00a351m star will decide Arsenal vs Man City title race and predicts winners<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>While the former Real Madrid attacking midfielder is at the top of his game, Arsenal sporting director Andrea Berta is already planning ahead and has identified two players who could replace him.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Arsenal eye Guler and Maza as Odegaard replacements<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p><strong>Arda Guler is one such player<\/strong>with a report claiming that Arsenal have already been \u2018in touch\u2019 over a move for the Real Madrid attacking midfielder.<\/p>\n<p>Like Odegaard, Guler is at his best when deployed in an attacking midfielder role, but the Turkey international is also able to play on the right wing as well as on the left flank.<\/p>\n<p>The German media has reported that <strong>Arsenal have already made an offer to sign Ibrahim Maza from Bayer Leverkusen<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>However, the \u20ac40million (\u00a335m) offer from the Gunners has been turned down.<\/p>\n<p>The Algeria international has been deployed primarily as an attacking midfielder in the 2025\/26 campaign and has drawn interest from Man City, too.<\/p>\n<p><strong>READ NEXT: Arsenal and \u2018exceptional\u2019 winger in agreement over exit as \u20ac90m Andrea Berta plan takes shape<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><!-- Article End --><\/div>\n<p><script>\n        !function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s)\n        {if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?\n        n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};\n        if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';\n        n.queue=();t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;\n        t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)(0);\n        s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,'script',\n        'https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/fbevents.js');\n        fbq('init', '1399787394855675');\n        fbq('track', 'PageView');\n    <\/script><script>\n        !function(e,n,t){var o=e.getElementsByTagName(n)(0);e.getElementById\n    <\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Manchester United legend Roy Keane had dismissed Arsenal attacking midfielder Martin Odegaard following the defeat to Manchester City last weekend, as the Gunners\u2019 sporting director [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":800,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/esport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/esport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/esport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=799"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/esport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/esport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}