For the last two summers, Mikel Arteta has attempted to fill the hole left by Granit Xhaka with summer signings who never really adapted to the left central midfield role. And for the second consecutive season, the player Arteta signed to be the ‘left eight’ has really shown their value by moving to centre-forward in the second half of the season.
The signing of Mikel Merino last summer was a signal that Arsenal were no longer buying potential or looking to develop a team slowly into the image of the manager. A Euro 2024 winner, Merino is 28, already has Premier League experience and seemed to fulfil a lot of Arteta’s obvious criterium for this position.
Merino is sturdily built, strong in the air, has the attributes of a ‘box crasher’ and wins ground duels at a scary rate. The ‘left eight’ role under Arteta is largely intended to be a reactive, off the ball role. Fabio Vieira and Emile Smith Rowe were played there last season in certain games- Vieira started at Goodison Park last season since there was little point in trying to play aerially against Sean Dyche’s team of Space Jam style super mutants.
Emile Smith Rowe started in the role at home to Luton and away at Nottingham Forest and Sheffield United, while Leandro Trossard started there away at Brentford. For games against back fives, Arteta showed a preference for a more technical, on ball presence but, in the main, the only guys that have really nailed the position are Granit Xhaka and Declan Rice.
However, despite being a ‘win now’ signing, Merino didn’t really get the chance to get to grips with the left eight role either. Off the back of a summer tournament that saw his Spain side go all the way, Merino was never going to benefit from a pre-season with his new team. Last season, we saw how that impacted David Raya, who didn’t properly settle into the number 1 position until Arsenal had a ‘second pre-season’ in Dubai.
On top of that, a player who excelled in duels was wiped out in training by one of Arsenal’s principal duel monsters in Gabriel. By the time he returned, Martin Odegaard was injured and he was playing in a very different iteration of the Arsenal team. He scored from a setpiece against Liverpool in October but otherwise, failed to impress in November.
He was substituted at half-time away at Preston in the Carabao Cup and was hooked a few days later at his former club Newcastle after 60 minutes. Another three days later at Inter, he was substituted on half-time again after conceding an unfortunate / absurd penalty. In the first half of the FA Cup defeat against Manchester United in January, he touched the ball just seven times in the first half.
Like others before him, Merino seemed to struggle to grip the left eight role. But he did always seem to carry penalty area threat and given the left central midfield role, in my view, is not a build-up role, penalty area threat is a better perspective to judge performance in that position than creativity and overall influence.
It is a low touch role, where the principal outputs appear to be pressing, winning duels and creating back post threat when Odegaard and Saka work the right corner of the penalty area. Merino was providing that to a satisfactory degree, even if he wasn’t jumping off the page.
But especially as Odegaard came out of the team and his creative juices seemed diluted even upon his return, many Arsenal fans pined for a player that provided a little more fantasy. The season ending injury to Kai Havertz has given Merino the same opportunity Havertz accepted last season to become the team’s focal point upfront.
I think this is slightly different to Havertz because, honestly, I doubt we will see Merino play upfront again after this season. After Havertz’s injury, Arteta initially started the first game of the no striker era with Leandro Trossard upfront at Leicester. It didn’t work, Merino came on, scored twice and the rest is history.
Arsenal have created 11.0 XG in the seven games since Havertz was injured and that includes a 7-1 win at PSV. Across five Premier League games in that time they have created 7.8 XG. Against Fulham, they created 2.0XG which was their highest rate in that time period.
In short, as one would expect, Arsenal look a lot less threatening. Even more impactful than Havertz and Jesus’ absences is the Bukayo Saka shaped hole we’ve had in the team since late December (while Martinelli missed plenty of games during this time period too). If we were judging Merino as an expensive striker acquisition in a fully fit team we might have a few concerns even if he has scored goals.
But we aren’t because that isn’t the scenario. Merino has been asked to do a job he has never been tasked with before and he has done it pretty well. Even if Arsenal lack a little overall punch (which, to repeat, has largely been down to Saka’s absence), Merino has five goals since moving upfront. It’s a very respectable total in a tough situation.
Per WhoScored, since coming on as a striker against Leicester on 15 February, no player has a better shot conversion rate in the Premier League (36.4% – 10+ shots). Doubtless this is a bit of a finishing hot streak that will be difficult to maintain but it still makes for impressive reading.
In adapting to this new reality, Merino has probably moved from a slightly underwhelming midfielder signing into something of a cult hero. The manner in which he has taken to his new task has earned him cult hero status. Even his chant, lifted from a very similar sounding refrain by Sporting Lisbon fans in Arsenal’s Champions League visit there in November, doesn’t fit the traditional terrace songbook.
His goal on Tuesday against Fulham felt pretty rare for Arsenal, in that he wasn’t overly deliberate, he took a slash at the ball in a crowded area and was rewarded with a generous deflection. It was a goal borne of the sort of jeopardy we don’t often see from Arsenal’s very deliberate attacking brushstrokes.
It will be interesting to see how he takes to his more traditional role again next season, whether being the number 9 has taught him anything that he can apply as a midfielder. Perhaps having a better understanding of what the striker is asked to do can help him support the centre-forward next season.
Whatever happened before and whatever happens next, Merino has, in slightly strange circumstances, become one of Arsenal’s most important players of the season. In reality, Arteta probably should have been in a situation where he was trialling a series of unconvincing alternatives but instead, Arsenal literally not having a striker hasn’t been as big an issue as it ought to have been.
