Rice is the key ingredient

The great Arsenal striker crisis of 2025 has brought a lot of focus onto Mikel Merino, who has been foisted into the limelight as an emergency striker. I cannot recall a period of my Arsenal supporting life that left the squad without an available striker. In January 2000, I recall going to Old Trafford and having to use Freddie Ljungberg as a second striker.

Kanu was at AFCON, Suker was suspended and Bergkamp was injured. Thierry Henry was still fit for that game, the question was simply who would line up as the second striker in a 442. Similarly, in January 2004, Arsene Wenger gave Thierry Henry a couple of weeks off as the Gunners negotiated a trio of cup games against Middlesbrough.

Wiltord and Kanu were injured so, again, the question was who would line up ahead of Dennis Bergkamp upfront. As it turned out, Freddie Ljungberg and Robert Pires played as alternating false 9s. I think this is the sort of model I would favour with the return of Gabriel Martinelli to the squad.

Arsenal’s striker crisis has been totally compounded by injuries to Saka and Martinelli, the idea that this team would line up with a front three of Sterling, Merino and Tierney for a Champions League knockout game was totally infeasible even a few short weeks ago. I think now I would prefer for some flavour of Martinelli and Trossard rotating between left-wing and centre-forward.

Merino has played upfront because, firstly, he has a similar frame to Kai Havertz and a similar propensity to win duels. He is cut out for the physical side of being a centre-forward. Secondly, he doesn’t yet have a fixed place elsewhere in the team, so playing him as a centre-forward has not involved removing a key piece from elsewhere in the team.

The problem is, totally understandably, Merino just doesn’t have the on-ball choreography, the sixth sense for when to move into the channels and connect with the wide players or make himself a sounding board as Havertz does. Merino helped create Zinchenko’s goal against PSV on Wednesday evening by winning a flick on from a Raya long pass and that is the sort of work that Mikel Arteta will appreciate.

Since his two-goal cameo from the bench at Leicester, Merino has offered little direct goal threat. His goal threat from midfield relies on late arrival into the penalty area, running from behind the ball. In fact, both his goals against Leicester sort of look like they were scored by an attacking midfielder.

The first one is the kind of goal I very much envisage him scoring in his natural left eight position. The second that afternoon came from a run from deep on the counter. Merino’s average XG per 90 this season is 0.24. In his last five appearances, all of which have been upfront, that has dropped to an average of 0.14 per 90. He is producing less individual goal threat.

But clearly, a lot of his job is creating a presence that helps others to produce goal threat. Arsenal have been more aggressive with their full-backs in recent weeks and when Riccardo Calafiori plays, he has a very freeform jazz interpretation of the left-back role and Arteta has unmoored him to be able to noodle away in the opposition half.

Calafiori’s last five performances have yielded a shot every 48 minutes on average. Merino is averaging a shot every 69 minutes across the same five game subset. But it isn’t just Calafiori who has an increased license to invade the opponent’s penalty area and to get around and beyond Merino.

Declan Rice has scored in his last two games and that is not a coincidence. After last week’s 7-1 demolition of PSV in the Netherlands, I was struck watching the highlights at how often Rice was basically in the centre-forward position for many of Arsenal’s goals. I took some screen caps.

Watching the goals back from Tuesday and Rice’s advanced position in many of them really struck me.

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— Tim Stillman (@tim-stillman.bsky.social) March 7, 2025 at 7:14 AM

You can see that Rice has been given a far more attacking brief during the great Arsenal striker famine. Last season, Declan managed seven goals and eight assists in the Premier League which are very strong attacking numbers for a player more renowned for his out of possession qualities.

At Old Trafford he made a strong support run and lashed home cutback from inside the box. On Wednesday against PSV, he once again made a late supporting run to head home a Raheem Sterling cross. He is currently fulfilling the Lampard / Gerrard / David Platt / Bryan Robson (delete as age dictates) brief very nicely.

This piece from Ali Tweedale at Opta really sets it out. Of Rice’s performance at Old Trafford, Ali writes, ‘Only Martin Ødegaard (38) completed more passes in the final third than him (36), while Rice also led the way for touches in the opposition box (six). His total of 16 progressive carries – moving with the ball at least five metres towards the opposition’s goal – was also the highest of every player on the pitch.’

Later in the piece, Ali writes, ‘He made more off-the-ball runs into the opposition’s box (nine) than any other player.’ Longer term, it does make me think that the ‘left eight’ role might just be the best one for Rice in the long-term since it more fully makes use of his broad skillset. I think he could / can play as a six but I fear it’s a limiting role for a true box-to-box player who carries so much box crashing threat.

That is a question that can wait for the summer, however. For now, Arsenal have a model where Merino’s brief is to occupy defenders, come short on occasion and allow runners to go past him. Rice and Calafiori tend to be the two on the moped speeding to Merino’s side, while Odegaard and Nwaneri are a little more considered on the right.

The frustrating thing about analysing this incarnation of the Arsenal attack is that none of it has a long-term future. We are very much in make do and mend territory. Merino will almost certainly never play in this role again for the club after May, Tierney and Sterling will be gone, Zinchenko will likely go and therefore deploying him in midfield recently seems to be more about filling in blanks than genuine experimentation.

However, in the debate about what Declan Rice is, or what he eventually turns out to be in this Arsenal team, this spell has some use for the manager beyond fielding warm bodies. Rice looks more and more, to my eyes anyway, like a true box to box midfielder (for all the predictable grief he got for celebrating his goal at Old Trafford last week, he celebrated his last ditch tackle even more vociferously).

Necessity has proved to be the mother of invention for Mikel Arteta in recent weeks but we all know that gaffer tape is not a long-term construction solution. Declan Rice’s renaissance, however, might have longer term ramifications as Arteta designs the next phase of his Arsenal team.