One in all 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 greatest 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 Kiwior was withdrawn at half-time on a tough day for him and for the crew.
A number of months later, Kiwior bought a run within the crew at left-back and seemed much more assured. Arteta admitted that he had tweaked the place just a little and didn’t ask Kiwior to invert into midfield. ‘You possibly can’t ask gamers to do issues that they don’t really feel particularly able to doing in a pure manner, so we now have 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 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’ possibility of Merino as a centre-forward once more. It has occurred nonetheless 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 good.
Final season, Merino’s sojourn as a striker was very hit or miss. Usually he might seem like a lone boat drifting aimlessly amongst a sea of defenders, finally changing into a small dot on the horizon. Arsenal have realized 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. This can be 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 capable of 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 purpose towards Bayern, as Arsenal clear Merino is on the sting of the realm and he digs out a first-time go to Eze which has gone unnoticed because of the 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 information 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 sport greater than Merino). You possibly can 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 in terms of working 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 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 suitable.
Merino coated extra distance than some other participant on the pitch towards Bayern Munich and towards Spurs he led the crew for tackles received, successful all 5 of his tried challenges. The map under (courtesy of statszone) reveals the place these tackles had been received they usually don’t seem like very quantity niney positions.
This reveals you the extent to which he’s wandering round just about all over the place aside from centre-forward, appearing as a bodily buffer the place vital or else as a magnet to attract opposition defenders. His go map from the Spurs sport additionally appears to be like rather 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 chopping his fabric and Merino now absolutely needs to be thought of as greater than only a break glass in case of emergency striker- should you might even name what he’s doing as taking part in as a striker.
