Tottenham great Glenn Hoddle is confident Arsenal will sort something out with Real Madrid should Martin Odegaard impress during his time on-loan.
The Norway international signed for the Gunners on a straight loan last month without an option to buy. Hoddle can understand Arsenal not buying Odegaard immediately, believing manager Mikel Arteta wanted to take a good look at the attacking midfielder without any long-term commitment.
But he is convinced Arsenal and Arteta won't let the youngster slip away should he impress over the coming months.
Hoddle said on his podcast, ' The Glenn Hoddle Footy Show': "I don't think they were 100 per cent convinced that he'd adapt to the Premier League. I think it's the shrewdest way of looking at it from Arsenal's point of view.
"If he pulls the trees up. If he's unbelievable and plays really, really well, they'll have an option of some sort to buy him. There's no doubt about that.
"But Arsenal are in a process. They're not the finished article by any means and there's a rebuild going on there."
Indeed, Hoddle went onto discuss the current stumble Arteta's Arsenal team have taken, after losing consecutive Premier League games to Wolves and Aston Villa. The former England manager believes such blips are always going to happen given the youth of the side.
He continued: "When you have a lot of youngsters in your team. When they come in and do well for two or three weeks, suddenly everything looks rosy. Arsenal were playing good football, with a lot of energy, pressing - everything Arteta wanted them to do.
"This was especially when he first came in and some players just weren't buying into it. But these youngsters have been doing that."
Hoddle says Arteta's kids now face a test of their mettle as opposition teams work out their strengths and weaknesses.
He explained, "But with youngsters, especially at the top level, they're going to fall away fatigue wise, or people see how they're playing. It's going to be a second test for them.
"They had this first phase, but now it's just like any young player coming in. You set a standard, but it's much harder to maintain that standard. I think that's what is happening to Arsenal.
"I'm not surprised."
Those back-to-back defeats for the Gunners see them now sit eleventh on the Premier League table.
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