Arteta mulls over starting Merino at centre-forward vs West Ham | OneFootball

Mikel Arteta has admitted it’s a different prospect to use Mikel Merino as a centre-forward in the starting lineup, as opposed to bringing him on as a substitute.

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As enjoyable as it was to watch the latter stages of last weekend’s win over Leicester City, there were certainly question marks over whether the manner of the victory could be sustainable.

Midfielder Mikel Merino came off the bench to play as a centre-forward for the first time in his career, and he did excellently, scoring a brace.

But how much of that was just good fortune? And can Merino repeat the feat against a defence that’s more prepared for his inclusion?

Those are questions for Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta to answer, and the manager admitted on Friday that it would be a different prospect to hand Merino a starting role at centre-forward.

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“Starting a game is very different, especially against a team with the ability to play in different ways with very different behaviours within different structures that they can use as well, and that’s what we have prepared for,” Arteta said.

“We believed [bringing on Merino] was right for that context (against Leicester) but then he made it right.

“We trained the last few weeks with different players [at centre-forward] to be fair, and he’s been one of them, but with other the players as well because it’s how you can finish the game, how you start the game, how you change if the opponent does something different.

“Every three days we’re going to need different options.”

Photo by Shaun Botterill/Getty Images

Arsenal do have a few other options at centre-forward. Leandro Trossard is one, as we saw for the first hour against Leicester. Raheem Sterling is another, having played centrally in the past, though he’s never done so for the Gunners.

Ethan Nwaneri can also play up front. But again, it’s not something he’s done for the Arsenal first team, only for the youth teams. Arteta should probably be the most hesitant to use Nwaneri centrally, as he’s already impressing on the right.

But with Sterling and Trossard struggling against Leicester (at least until Trossard moved out wide), the other two positions in the front three are up for grabs ahead of Saturday’s game against West Ham.