Mikel Arteta was unsurprisingly in a jubilant mood following his Arsenal side’s late win over Leicester City. Mikel Merino came up with two goals in the final moments of the match as the Gunners boss needed to find a tactical gem to break the deadlock.
Ethan Nwaneri and Myles Lewis-Skelly again played pivotal roles in the game. The latter with an excellent defensive touch before a perfect cross from the former to set up Merino – Arteta was keen to congratulate both but also try to temper the hype and allow them simply to just play and do their best for the team despite their young ages.
Yes, a very tough match. The first half, especially the first 20-25 minutes, we struggled to get certain momentum because we did a lot of simple things very wrong, giving a lot of balls away and never really threatening and generating enough momentum and sequences in the opposition’s box.
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But the second half was very different. We had much more urgency, better intentions, better executions. And then you can sense that the game was going in the direction that it had to go. Saying that, it’s a moment when we give the ball away in the middle of the park. The space is open in the counter and Myles has to make a magic touch to deny the goal.
And in the other end, that’s when we scored the goal. With the shots, they were brilliant and Mikel obviously made a huge impact to score the two goals.
Yes, we’re going to have to share that and we know that. We’re going to have various contexts, sometimes we’re going to have to make a sub because a player is not performing or because the opposition is doing something else or because he’s got a yellow card or he’s fatigued.
And that’s going to restrict what we can do, really, in terms of the personnel. But we have prepared for different scenarios. Then those scenarios have to work. Hopefully, they will work as good as Mikel worked today.
When Mikel Merino scored, I was thinking back to the summer, the Euros, when he scored against Germany. I was wondering, did you kind of think back to your old team-mate, Marouane Fellaini? Because it seems like a very similar thing.
I didn’t think about him, to be fair. But Mikel has got that. It’s a good threat because he can smell danger. He can anticipate the action. He’s got really good timing to arrive to certain areas. And then, obviously, he has the capacity to execute with a lot of parts of his body. And he needed the delivery. He certainly had that as well and he put it in the back of the net.
And was that front three something we were seeing you kind of work out in real time because of the different kind of profiles? Obviously starting with the smaller guys but then bringing on Merino?
Well, I think the game started to suit him more because they started to defend much more deeper, and we had more momentum, more sequences, more set-pieces as well in that period. And we believed that he could impact the game. We were lucky that he did it.
How important was it after Liverpool dropped those late points, demoralising circumstances for them on Wednesday, for you to put pressure on them ahead of tomorrow’s game?
Yes, and it was for us as well. With everything that happened in the last few days, there was a lot of noise as well. To show how much we wanted, that regardless of what happens, we’re going to really go for it, that we believe in the resources that we have, in the quality of our players. And we can still adapt and be very competitive and still win a lot of matches.
When did you come up with the idea of having Merino as a striker?
I put all the options but there were too many. The moment you start to draw options there are too many, and at the end, you have to have the picture in your head of what can work and what are the variables and the options and the synergies within the team.
And then you have to feel it, and that’s a feeling on the pitch and seeing what has happened actually, what is the game demanding. We believe that it was him in that moment, and then to get it right he needs to deliver, which is the hardest thing in football.
Given the situation you’re in with injuries and everything, is it going to be the case for the rest of the season that in different moments, different players are going to need to step up to Mikel today but someone else might do it?
For sure. And it would have been earlier in the game because, for example, Ethan he puts the ball in the crossbar, then he puts the ball in the post. We have another massive chance arriving with Declan in the first half. It can be a set-piece, it can be in various ways.
The team has a lot of capacity in open spaces, which today were really dangerous as well. We had the ability to run, and that’s what we need. We are a threat from every situation.
It was a tough day for Raheem. Is he a player that needs some rhythm in the games and maybe a confidence player as well?
Yeah, and as well, I think from everybody, to step up the game because in the first half, as I said, especially in the first 20-25 minutes, we weren’t at our standards, and when that happens it’s very difficult for the front players.
I want to go back to that Lewis-Skelly moment because it was only eight minutes before Mikel scored his goal. It seemed such an incredible touch, a moment of maturity to know what type of touch to take in there. Give me your reaction when you saw that moment, a trick or what?
Well, to be fair, on the bench, I didn’t know whether he touched it or not. If it was a deflection before in the cross, but when I watched it back in the dressing room, it was amazing because it was one of those moments where he should have changed the moment in the game and probably the result.
On TV, Mikel, Joe Cole has compared Nwaneri to Messi. How talented do you think he is and how much of a future does he have?
Well, what he’s showing basically, that’s him. Obviously, his age is always something that puts a question mark on how we have to deal with him. But every sign that he’s given us is ‘Let me go for it, let me go, let me go, let me go.’ When a player is giving you all those signs, you should not stop it. You have to play with that freedom, with that creativity, with that confidence that he’s playing at the minute, and the players around him believe in him. So let him go because he’s a massive threat, massive talent and he deserves to play.
Until Mikel [Merino] came on, Ethan looked like your most dangerous player.
Yeah, because I think I was one of the few in the first half as well that every time he was on the ball he made things happen. You could see that he had another level of threat than the rest of the team and he continued with that in the second half with two great actions and after that he put the ball on the plate for Mikel to score the header.
