One of Mikel Arteta’s key coaching strengths, in my opinion, is to recognise the qualities of his players and put them in positions where their best attributes can flourish. In the 2023-24 season, Arteta initially asked 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 Kiwior was withdrawn at half-time on a difficult day for him and for the team.
A few months later, Kiwior got a run in the team at left-back and looked far more assured. Arteta admitted that he had tweaked the position a little and did not ask Kiwior to invert into midfield. ‘You can’t ask players to do things that they don’t feel especially capable of doing in a natural way, so we have to tweak a few things to make sure players play to their strength.’
It seems to be a lesson that the manager has taken with him ever since. Last week, I wrote about how Arsenal had adapted to the absence of Martin Odegaard via a very different player in Ebereche Eze. In that column I posited that playing without Odegaard last season had stood Arsenal in good stead to play without him this season.
The same is true of Mikel Merino as a number 9. Last season, when Jesus and Havertz were injured, Arteta initially opted for Trossard as a false 9 for an away trip to Leicester before bringing Merino on from the bench. The Spaniard scored two penalty box goals to secure the points and was used there for the remainder of the season.
Having added Viktor Gyokeres to the mix this summer, Arsenal probably weren’t expecting to be enacting the ‘break glass in case of emergency’ option of Merino as a centre-forward again. It has happened however and, again, last season’s pretty painful and season killing injury problems have given Arteta a solid grounding to revert to emergency protocol. Practice makes perfect.
Last season, Merino’s sojourn as a striker was very hit and miss. Often he could look like a lone boat drifting aimlessly among a sea of defenders, eventually becoming a small dot on the horizon. Arsenal have learned some lessons but they have also been able to use Merino’s qualities as a foil, not least with an invading presence like Trossard on the left flank and a third midfielder like Eze, who operates more like a 10 and loves to shoot.
Instead of banging up against opposing defenders, Merino has roamed horizontally across the pitch and Saka, Trossard and Eze (primarily) have taken it in turns to invade the space he has vacated. We see this most clearly for Leo Trossard’s opening goal against Tottenham on Sunday.
Thomas Frank waved the white flag by playing a back five. Tottenham’s centre-halves are all brawn but with very little semblance of a football brain. Merino’s wanderlust gave the Spurs defenders nobody to smash into. This is a very clear illustration of the idea, Merino has moved away from the forward line and Saka, Trossard and Eze are all ahead of him and none of Spurs’ centre-backs have followed the Spaniard.
The player has also been able to showcase his creative qualities, he has a really nice way of receiving on the half-turn and clipping left footed passes into his attacking teammates. We saw this too in the build up to Martinelli’s goal against Bayern, as Arsenal clear Merino is on the edge of the area and he digs out a first-time pass to Eze which has gone unnoticed due to the pass Eze himself produced seconds later.
We also saw these qualities from the Spaniard in the Champions League against Real Madrid last season, with two sumptuous left-footed passes for Saka and Martinelli’s goals in the Bernabeu. Merino had 32 touches against Bayern Munich and 47 against Spurs, Gyokeres averages 23.7 touches per 90 (all data from FBref).
Gyokeres averages 12.6 passes attempted per 90 and Merino has averaged 26.5 per 90 across the last two games. (Obviously Gyokeres takes over one shot per game more than Merino). You can see that Arsenal have totally changed what they demand from their centre-forward in response to having to use Merino as opposed to Gyokeres.
Trossard has strong instincts when it comes to running in behind but in Ebereche Eze, Arsenal have a relatively low touch, high volume shooter who operates far more as an orthodox 10 compared to Martin Odegaard. For Eze’s first goal in the North London derby, we can see that the front three and Declan Rice are all ahead of Merino as play unfolds down the right.
Merino covered more distance than any other player on the pitch against Bayern Munich and against Spurs he led the team for tackles won, winning all five of his attempted challenges. The map below (courtesy of statszone) shows where those tackles were won and they don’t look like very number niney positions.
This shows you the extent to which he is wandering around pretty much everywhere other than centre-forward, acting as a physical buffer where necessary or else as a magnet to draw opposition defenders. His pass map from the Spurs game also looks much more midfielderey.
In essence, with Merino upfront instead of Gyokeres and with a player like Eze playing more advanced than Odegaard would be, Arsenal have switched from a 4231 to more of a 4213 with the three ahead of Merino rotating. It is another example of Arteta cutting his cloth and Merino now surely has to be considered as more than just a break glass in case of emergency striker- if you could even call what he is doing as playing as a striker.
