Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta has admitted he was surprised to see Martin Odegaard step up for the game-winning penalty against Crystal Palace on Monday night, but hinted the Gunners don’t actually have an established order of penalty takers.
Bukayo Saka would typically take penalties, yet it was captain Odegaard who stood over the ball early in the second half for the decisive moment at Selhurst Park.
"I have no clue, it's about leadership of players, and if they felt it was the right thing to do, for me I'm fine," Arteta said of the situation afterwards. "They have to make those decisions on the pitch. I was surprised like everybody else, but he scored the goal which is the important thing and we won the game."
Continuing about the victory itself, the Spaniard continued: "I loved it, absolutely loved it. It’s a really difficult place to come. We played how we wanted to play 11 against 11, we dominated the game, we created enough chances, we missed two very, very huge chances that normally we put away, but we never gave up.
"We continued the way we wanted to continue. Eddie earned us the right to go ahead with his action, we scored the penalty and then we had to play half an hour with 10 men, which is obviously a conflict that we didn’t prepare."
The other big talking point in the game saw Takehiro Tomiyasu controversially sent off following two yellow cards in the second half. The first was shown for apparent time-wasting over a throw-in, adhering to new guidelines in place in the Premier League this season.
The decision to caution Tomiyasu over the incident seemed harsh, with the Japanese defender taking only eight seconds for his throw-in. The majority of time that had been wasted before that – around 15 seconds – had been Kai Havertz, who subsequently then passed the throw-in on to Tomiyasu.
"These are the [new] standards," Arteta said to BBC Sport. "It wasn't [23 seconds]. I think it was eight seconds. We might have to play with a stop watch. It's okay, we won the game, I'm happy. The new rules are one thing, the way it is communicated is very different but we will adapt."
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This article was originally published on 90min as Mikel Arteta admits surprise over Martin Odegaard penalty.
