Mikel Merino’s arrival will do wonders for key man.
The official announcement of Mikel Merino’s Arrival to the club is only a matter time with after we struck a deal with Real Sociedad for the Spanish international midfielder last week. A duel winning machine who I very much think will be deployed as our left sided no. 8 due to his left sided bias and knack of arriving late into the box to finish off goalscoring chances.
This deal took a while for us to complete with interests in the Pamplona native dating back to before this summer’s Euros but an official announcement may have been worth waiting for.
The deal is very much done and I think one player who will benefit from this signing is Declan Rice. It’s no secret that the Englishman has played alot of minutes for both club and country recently, the midfielder was ranked 9th last season for the most amount of minutes played by an outfield player in the league last season, second among midfielders in the entire league.
Furthermore he also played over 800+ mins in our UCL campaign as well as in all our cup games. This took it’s toll towards the latter stages of last season with his performance in the loss against villa at home perfectly exemplifying how tiring a lot of games can be.
Having a fully fit Declan Rice could be the difference between three points, and one which is very crucial in this unforgiving league we are. Mikel Merino’s Arrival should do well with managing his minutes and helping us to be more unpredictable with different variations to our game plan. He’s a quality addition that will bring depth and a wealth of options for Mikel Arteta to choose from in the middle if the park.
This is just my opinion, but do you all agree with this or y’all think that the two of them will be paired in Midfield on a regular basis?
KENNETH BENJAMIN.
Rice has had a sluggish start to the season which is not surprising given the relatively short period of rest following on from the Euros.A Partey Merino combo in central midfield would not materially weaken our engine room and there is now probably scope for Arteta to test Rice when appropriate.However, what concerns me more is who replaces our Capitain who also needs a break from time to time.With ESR moved on who fills the AM role in the absence of Odegaard?
Good points – agree about merino being able to cover a similar role to rice and allowing us to rest him.
The odegaard question is interesting – I think nwaneri is probably the most similar player we have in reserve now, but we’d probably not want to rely on him over a longer period of time, given his age. Depending on how the squad looks, I would expect us to turn to either havertz (if jesus was available to play up front) or trossard if odegaard was unavailable – or I suppose trossard and havertz could cover both positions.
I’d be interested to see how saka took to that role as well – I think it might suit him quite well tbh
Trossard certainly has the technical skills and football intelligence to fill in for Odegaard Davi, but does he have the stamina to fulfil such a demanding role?Odegaard may not be quick but he has great energy and I doubt if Trossard could maintain a high tempo for 90 mins particularly as he has been used off the bench so often.
Yes, you’re probably right. I think then arteta would use a combination of players – I think he’d have trossard and havertz sharing the two roles, and he’d use nwaneri and maybe others from the bench. He could even use Merino depending on the circumstances. He would help with the high press and he’s technically very decent, I think
i too fear for Odegaard, a long term injury potential title challenge ending
it is his playmaker role (rather than strictly positional right attacking midfield) field that we have no replacement for
ESR (gone anyway), Trossard etc don’t have playmaker in their locker
Vieira was supposed to be that but is well short, now only Nwanera who looks the real deal but is clearly short on experience
Edu/Arteta have got squad depth right this window so far;
– Calafiori strengthening left hand side defence
– Merino strengthening left hand side midfield
next priority for them likely to be right wing where drop off in quality from Saka to Nelson is huge, 37 hours to sort that one out
playmaker midfield next priority for me, but probably no time this window, hopefully Nwanera can develop quickly over the coming season