Guillem Balague thinks Arsenal have no chance of signing Martin Odegaard on a permanent deal in the summer, particularly if Zinedine Zidane leaves.

One of Arsenal’s two loan signings in the January window, Martin Odegaard joined the club on a temporary deal without an option to buy. However, reports have always suggested the club would review the situation again in the summer.

Though Arsenal don’t have any contractual options to keep Odegaard for longer, they’ll hope to convince him that North London is a better place to be at this stage of his career.

Unfortunately, Guillem Balague responded pretty emphatically about the chances of the Gunners convincing Real Madrid to sell permanently.

“Zero, I think,” Balague said. “Real Madrid need to build a future based on the youngsters that they bought.

“The idea was always, from the moment that Zidane arrived, for him to accept that there are new players that he had to accommodate in the team.

“Yes, they will renew Kroos and Modric and whatever…[but] they won’t revamp the squad, they don’t have the money…the idea was to get these youngsters to become regulars by now.”

Balague went on to add that it’s somewhat dependent on whether or not Zinedine Zidane remains manager. The current boss is purely focused on winning, so he’s less likely to integrate the young players, whereas a new boss might be tasked to do so.

So perhaps there’s a small beacon of hope there. If Real can perform well enough to keep Zidane in his job for the summer, his influence could help to push the club to accept an offer for a player he didn’t show much faith in this season.

For the time being, obviously, we just want to see Odegaard finding some form in an Arsenal shirt and helping the club have a positive second half of the season.