Martin Odegaard Anfield Arsenal Mikel Arteta

‘We were all a little bit confused’: Martin Odegaard opens up on the You’ll Never Walk Alone Arsenal training ground moment

December 22, 2022 Sports 2 Views

Amazon Prime’s documentary series, All or Nothing, is an incredibly insightful behind-the-scenes look at the inner workings of a football club, and the one released in the summer of 2022 on Arsenal proved no exception.

Fans and neutrals alike were treated to details on Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang’s mid-season departure from the club, and how the dressing room reacted to squandering Champions League football.

However, the most bizarre moment of the series came when Mikel Arteta made his Arsenal players train to speakers blaring out You’ll Never Walk Alone ahead of their Premier League clash with Liverpool at Anfield last November.

Designed to replicate the atmosphere at Anfield, Arteta described it as “one of my crazy ideas,” though there was certainly an element of method in his madness.

Speaking to FourFourTwo in the latest issue available to buy, club captain Martin Odegaard explained what it was like to walk out to training and hear the iconic song being played.

“We were all a little bit confused when we could hear the music on… then we saw the speakers,” Odegaard told FFT. “Anfield can be the loudest stadium in this country. It was a nice way to prepare the team.

“But Mikel is very creative. He will always do what it takes to prepare the team as well as possible. It’s always interesting to be in a meeting with him: you can learn things, pick up new things, and there’s so many details in the game he will teach you. It’s nice to learn so much about football.”

It didn’t work, though.

Arsenal went on to lose the game 4-0, with Sadio Mane, Diogo Jota, Mohamed Solah and Takumi Minamino all finding the net for Liverpool. Arteta even lost his cool during the game, confronting Jurgen Klopp during a heated exchange.

While it is unclear whether Arteta has replicated any other similar tricks this season – there is no Amazon documentary following the team around this campaign – he does have Arsenal sitting pretty at the top of the Premier League, five points clear of Manchester City as domestic football returns after the World Cup break.

The Gunners still have a trip to Anfield to come in April: it will be interesting to see if You’ll Never Walk Alone is played at the Arsenal training ground again.