Certainly one of 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 Kiwior was withdrawn at half-time on a tough day for him and for the staff.
A number of months later, Kiwior bought a run within the staff at left-back and regarded way more assured. Arteta admitted that he had tweaked the place just a little 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 approach, so we have now to tweak a couple of issues to ensure 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 by way of a really completely different participant in Ebereche Eze. In that column I posited that taking part in 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 have 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 season, 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 damage issues have given Arteta a strong grounding to revert to emergency protocol. Follow makes excellent.
Final season, Merino’s sojourn as a striker was very hit or miss. Typically he might appear like 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 ready 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 towards opposing defenders, Merino has roamed horizontally throughout the pitch and Saka, Trossard and Eze (primarily) have taken it in turns to invade the house he has vacated. We see this most clearly for Leo Trossard’s opening purpose towards Tottenham on Sunday.
Thomas Frank waved the white flag by taking part in 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 person 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 inventive qualities, he has a very nice approach 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 purpose towards Bayern, as Arsenal clear Merino is on the sting of the world and he digs out a first-time go to Eze which has gone unnoticed as a result of go Eze himself produced seconds later.
We additionally noticed these qualities from the Spaniard within the Champions League towards Actual Madrid final season, with two luxurious left-footed passes for Saka and Martinelli’s targets within the Bernabeu. Merino had 32 touches towards Bayern Munich and 47 towards 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 sturdy instincts in the case of operating in behind however in Ebereche Eze, Arsenal have a comparatively low contact, excessive quantity shooter who operates way more as an orthodox 10 in comparison with Martin Odegaard. For Eze’s first purpose within the North London derby, we will see that the entrance three and Declan Rice are all forward of Merino as play unfolds down the proper.
Merino lined extra distance than another participant on the pitch towards Bayern Munich and towards Spurs he led the staff for tackles gained, profitable all 5 of his tried challenges. The map under (courtesy of statszone) exhibits the place these tackles have been gained they usually don’t appear like very quantity niney positions.
This exhibits you the extent to which he’s wandering round just about all over the place apart from centre-forward, appearing as a bodily buffer the place crucial or else as a magnet to attract opposition defenders. His go map from the Spurs recreation additionally appears to be like way more midfielderey.
In essence, with Merino upfront as an alternative of Gyokeres and with a participant like Eze taking part in 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 slicing his material and Merino now certainly must be thought of as greater than only a break glass in case of emergency striker- in case you might even name what he’s doing as taking part in as a striker.
