Arsenal legend Martin Keown has defended summer signing Martin Odegaard after comments the latter made about the dressing room atmosphere at the club.

Odegaard was asked in an interview about the difference between life at Real Madrid and the Gunners.

The 22-year-old, who failed to break through into Real Madrid's first team, suggested that Arsenal's changing room was friendlier and more relaxed than Real's.

"It's a good start because he's obviously been in a situation where it wasn't particularly nice and he didn't feel that welcome," he told talkSPORT.

"When Arsene Wenger arrived at Arsenal we were were a bit worried about whether he was going to be too nice, but I think we'd already shaped our personalities and characters by then so we didn't necessarily need to worry about that.

"Martin Odegaard is just starting out in his career. He hardly played for Real Madrid. I do feel the environment needed to improve at Arsenal when you think about what was happening with [Mesut] Ozil, a lot of power there and not the greatest of role models.

"Odegaard is in a dressing room now where he feels he's got the right environment to work in and I think that's good as well.

"But don't be naive. You need to be able to protect yourself and you need to be equipped with a set of banter for every player that might want to attack you because you've got to spin it back to them."