Mikel Merino – Space and Time

One among Mikel Arteta’s key teaching strengths, in my view, is to recognise the qualities of his gamers and put them in positions the place their finest attributes can flourish. Within the 2023-24 season, Arteta initially requested Jakub Kiwior to play as an inverting left-back with Zinchenko, Tomiyasu and Timber all injured, for an away defeat at Fulham. Kiwior was withdrawn at half-time on a tough day for him and for the group.

Just a few months later, Kiwior acquired a run within the group at left-back and appeared much more assured. Arteta admitted that he had tweaked the place a bit of and didn’t ask Kiwior to invert into midfield. ‘You may’t ask gamers to do issues that they don’t really feel particularly able to doing in a pure manner, so we have now to tweak a couple of issues to verify gamers play to their energy.’

It appears to be a lesson that the supervisor has taken with him ever since. Final week, I wrote about how Arsenal had tailored to the absence of Martin Odegaard through a really completely different participant in Ebereche Eze. In that column I posited that enjoying with out Odegaard final season had stood Arsenal in good stead to play with out him this season.

The identical is true of Mikel Merino as a quantity 9. Final season, when Jesus and Havertz had been injured, Arteta initially opted for Trossard as a false 9 for an away journey to Leicester earlier than bringing Merino on from the bench. The Spaniard scored two penalty field targets to safe the factors and was used there for the rest of the season.

Having added Viktor Gyokeres to the combo this summer time, Arsenal most likely weren’t anticipating to be enacting the ‘break glass in case of emergency’ choice of Merino as a centre-forward once more. It has occurred nevertheless and, once more, final season’s fairly painful and season killing harm issues have given Arteta a strong grounding to revert to emergency protocol. Apply makes excellent.

Final season, Merino’s sojourn as a striker was very hit or miss. Typically he may appear to be a lone boat drifting aimlessly amongst a sea of defenders, finally changing into a small dot on the horizon. Arsenal have discovered some classes however they’ve additionally been in a position to make use of Merino’s qualities as a foil, not least with an invading presence like Trossard on the left flank and a 3rd midfielder like Eze, who operates extra like a ten and likes to shoot.

As a substitute of banging up in opposition to opposing defenders, Merino has roamed horizontally throughout the pitch and Saka, Trossard and Eze (primarily) have taken it in turns to invade the area he has vacated. We see this most clearly for Leo Trossard’s opening aim in opposition to Tottenham on Sunday.

Thomas Frank waved the white flag by enjoying a again 5. Tottenham’s centre-halves are all brawn however with little or no semblance of a soccer mind. Merino’s wanderlust gave the Spurs defenders no one to smash into. It is a very clear illustration of the thought, Merino has moved away from the ahead line and Saka, Trossard and Eze are all forward of him and none of Spurs’ centre-backs have adopted the Spaniard.

The participant has additionally been in a position to showcase his artistic qualities, he has a very nice manner of receiving on the half-turn and clipping left footed passes into his attacking teammates. We noticed this too within the construct as much as Martinelli’s aim in opposition to Bayern, as Arsenal clear Merino is on the sting of the world and he digs out a first-time move to Eze which has gone unnoticed because of the move Eze himself produced seconds later.

We additionally noticed these qualities from the Spaniard within the Champions League in opposition to Actual Madrid final season, with two luxurious left-footed passes for Saka and Martinelli’s targets within the Bernabeu. Merino had 32 touches in opposition to Bayern Munich and 47 in opposition to Spurs, Gyokeres averages 23.7 touches per 90 (all knowledge from FBref).

Gyokeres averages 12.6 passes tried per 90 and Merino has averaged 26.5 per 90 throughout the final two video games. (Clearly Gyokeres takes over one shot per recreation greater than Merino). You may see that Arsenal have completely modified what they demand from their centre-forward in response to having to make use of Merino versus Gyokeres.

Trossard has robust instincts on the subject of operating in behind however in Ebereche Eze, Arsenal have a comparatively low contact, excessive quantity shooter who operates much more as an orthodox 10 in comparison with Martin Odegaard. For Eze’s first aim within the North London derby, we are able to see that the entrance three and Declan Rice are all forward of Merino as play unfolds down the suitable.

Merino lined extra distance than some other participant on the pitch in opposition to Bayern Munich and in opposition to Spurs he led the group for tackles received, successful all 5 of his tried challenges. The map under (courtesy of statszone) exhibits the place these tackles had been received they usually don’t appear to be very quantity niney positions.

This exhibits you the extent to which he’s wandering round just about in all places aside from centre-forward, appearing as a bodily buffer the place vital or else as a magnet to attract opposition defenders. His move map from the Spurs recreation additionally seems rather more midfielderey.

In essence, with Merino upfront as a substitute of Gyokeres and with a participant like Eze enjoying extra superior than Odegaard can be, Arsenal have switched from a 4231 to extra of a 4213 with the three forward of Merino rotating. It’s one other instance of Arteta reducing his fabric and Merino now certainly must be thought-about as greater than only a break glass in case of emergency striker- when you may even name what he’s doing as enjoying as a striker.