If a player is under contract then a club can force them to stay no matter what, but it’s not usually a good idea to hurt yourself financially just to keep an unhappy player around.
That is the potential situation that Real Madrid face with Martin Odegaard next season, and a report from Marca doesn’t make for great reading if you’re an Arsenal fan.
They suggest that Odegaard still wants to succeed in Madrid but he’s currently happy and playing well at Arsenal, so he would be perfectly happy to turn that into a permanent deal and stay in London.
The problem is that there’s no option to buy included in that loan deal, and Real have no intention of selling him so that does put Arsenal in a tough spot.
READ MORE: Injury update issued for Arsenal loanee Martin Odegaard after Norway vs Gibraltar
The only hope here comes down to the coaching situation in Madrid, as the Norwegian star is said to resent Zinedine Zidane for the way he’s treated him in the past and he would need a lot of persuading to actually go back.
It’s believed that he would accept it if he’s given assurances about an important role in the team, so his future is going to be closely tied to Zidane and what he plans to do.
From Arsenal’s point of view this does make is sound like it could be a drawn-out process when he goes back to Madrid as it could even take some time for them to do their transfer business and for Odegaard to see where he stands, so the chance of a permanent deal doesn’t look too good just now.
If Zidane stays and doesn’t plan to use him properly then it could be much easier, so that’s what Arsenal will need to hope for at this point.