Gabriel Martinelli won his second consecutive Arsenal Player of the Month award last week, perhaps somewhat controversially.

Arsenal announced late last week that Gabriel Martinelli had won his second consecutive Arsenal Player of the Month award, this time for his performances in January.

Martinelli earned 41% of the fan votes, edging out Martin Odegaard in second place. I have to say, it’s not the result I expected.

There’s no doubt that Martinelli brought something to Arsenal’s performances even when things were going badly.

The winger made a fantastic start to the semi-final second leg against Liverpool after working tirelessly in the first leg, and he had a strong first-half against Manchester City.

But it’s the second month in a row when Odegaard has been overlooked. The playmaker has performed excellently on an individual basis and has arguably been let down by his teammates’ finishing on many occasions.

You just have to look at the numbers, with Odegaard creating 28 chances since December 1st, only three of which were converted into goals.

That’s on top of the three goals he’s scored, the same number as Martinelli during that period. They both scored three in December and none in January.

Martinelli works harder, but Odegaard is hardly a slacker. He presses at only a marginally inferior rate, and he’s clearly making up for that with his efforts on the ball.

For the 23-year-old to come out of the last two months without winning either of the club Player of the Month awards is a shame, because no one can convince me Martinelli’s performances were so much better that he deserved both awards.

One each would have been fair. But the fans have their favourites.

Martinelli is at least a deserving winner if you take Odegaard out of the equation, he was certainly ahead of a lot of the rest of the squad in January. So this is no slight on him at all, and long may his progress continue.