In this round of the Premier League, Arsenal defeated Crystal Palace 1-0. Before the game, Arsenal captain Odegaard updated his notes on the official website, praising the team's excellent defensive performance so far this season. He pointed out that the team has only allowed its opponents to complete one shot on target in the past three games, "which is really incredible." It has completed nine clean sheets in 12 games throughout the season and conceded only three goals. Odegaard attributed this to the team's "organisation, hard work, communication" and overall collaboration where "everyone understands the principles".

Excerpts from Odegaard's notes

The team has performed very well on the defensive end throughout the season, and we hope to continue to do so while improving in all areas where we can improve. I heard after the game that we had only allowed one shot on target in the last three games, which was unbelievable. This means nine clean sheets and only three goals conceded in 12 games this season.

For me, it comes down to a lot of different things: organization, hard work, communication, everything.

We have been working together for a long time now and everyone understands the principles. The players on the defensive line are all absolutely fierce. They just love that kind of defensive situation, which also helps! But in front of them, we as a team defended from the front and the same with the midfielders. It's a unit that works well together, which makes it easier for us to stay compact and defend like we are.

In our defensive hub, when you watch Gabby Gabriel and Saliba, you can see how much they love to defend! They have been together for a long time now and have a strong relationship off the court. They know each other so well that you can see if one of them makes a mistake, the other one is there to make up for it. They work together really well but to be fair you see that throughout the team, there are a lot of combinations and partnerships all over the pitch. The principles are very clear, the culture is very clear, and that helps a lot.

We know we need to be at our best when facing Crystal Palace today. They've done really well recently and for me what they've achieved is the beauty of football in general, especially in the Premier League. Every year you see a team that can surprise and last season they won the FA Cup and they deserved it. They've also started the season well, but to me they've always had a really good team.

They have good, skilled players, but I feel like they've really transformed into a solid team recently. The manager does a great job there - he makes them a very difficult team to play against because they don't give many chances defensively but can also attack. They have that physicality now, especially with Matteta up front, so it's a challenging team. This is another severe test for us.

We want to keep the good momentum going, and the best way to do that is to focus on ourselves and our performance. As Saka said last week, if we don't beat Newcastle people are ready to say our season is over. Now just a few weeks later we are top of the table and suddenly everyone is saying we are going to win the title. So there's always a lot of noise around us, whether it's positive or negative, and what we always have to do is focus on ourselves.

Everyone knows, especially from our past experience, that things can be decided by one point, like they were two years ago. This is a very intense and difficult league and we know how important every game is. That's why every win you can get means so much.