Mikel Merino is Arsenal’s new wrecking ball but £32m man mixes silk with steel

The dressing room is silent. Mikel Arteta is furious. The Arsenal manager paces the floor for a few moments and then, in his rage, grabs hold of a laundry basket. Slapping it in anger, he looks his players in the eyes, and then tears them apart.

“I don’t accept these f------ standards,” he says. “It’s nowhere near. Nowhere near! I see it in training, that it does not matter to give the ball away. No! Because in a game, it’s a goal! When I lose a duel, I am upset. When I lose the small-sided games, I am upset. Because that is the f------ standard.”

The scene of this rant – shown in Amazon’s All or Nothing series – was the away changing room at Nottingham Forest, after Arsenal had been defeated in the FA Cup in January 2022. Times have changed at Arsenal since then, but Arteta’s principles and “standards” remain the same: if Arsenal lose a duel, their manager is upset.

Arteta’s passion for winning those battles, for dominating the opponent in every part of the pitch, goes some way towards explaining Arsenal’s £32 million purchase of Spain midfielder Mikel Merino. The 28-year-old arrives in north London with a reputation for being one of the great duel-winners in the European game, and he should make Arsenal even tougher to beat.

Merino is not what you might expect of a Spanish international midfielder. He is technically gifted, of course, but not in the same way as former Premier League stars such as David Silva, Santi Cazorla or even Arteta himself. Unlike those technicians, Merino seems to be just as comfortable attacking a cross with his head, or crunching into a tackle, as he is receiving the ball in tight spaces.

Last season, for Real Sociedad, Merino won more aerial duels than any other midfielder in La Liga. He also made more tackles in the final third than any other player, and produced by far the most flick-ons to his team-mates. He is such a threat in the air that eight of his past 15 goals for club and country have been headers.

At 6ft 2in, with an engine that carries him from one penalty box to the other, Merino is a physical warrior who will add yet more power to an Arsenal side that is packed with giants. Arsenal are already an enormous threat at set-pieces. Merino’s arrival should make them even stronger in that regard.

Some might question why Arsenal are investing so much in a 28-year-old midfielder who is already in his prime. Most of their signings in recent years have been younger talents with room to improve.

The first response would be that Arteta, from San Sebastián, is probably something of an expert on Spanish midfielders who come from the Basque country and are named Mikel. On this one, Arsenal fans should probably take Arteta’s word for it. The second response is that Arteta himself was 29 when he joined Arsenal from Everton, and he had more than enough time to make his mark in north London.

Merino, who won the European Championship with Spain this summer — he scored the winning goal with a glorious header in their quarter-final against Germany — has experience of English football: he played 24 league matches for Newcastle United in 2017/18 before returning to Spain with Real Sociedad.

Merino also has experience of playing with Arsenal captain Martin Odegaard, who spent a year on loan from Real Madrid at Sociedad, and is impressively resilient: in the past five campaigns, he has averaged 42 appearances for his club.

Within the Arsenal system, Merino is expected to compete for a place on the left of Arteta’s midfield three. The position has not been entirely nailed down since Granit Xhaka departed for Bayer Leverkusen last year. Kai Havertz was signed primarily for that role but has since shown himself to be a far better striker, while Declan Rice has played there when he is not patrolling in front of the back four.

Merino will not necessarily be an automatic starter for Arsenal but, like new defender Riccardo Calafiori, he offers quality and depth. This summer Arsenal have raised the floor of their squad, rather than the ceiling.

The son of a footballer – he recreated his father Ángel’s celebration after that goal against Germany in Stuttgart – Merino is not likely to cause any off-field troubles. He says he enjoys his “quiet routines”, such as “long after-dinner conversations and playing board games”, and he was recently reading a book about success by Phil Jackson, the legendary basketball coach.

This is the sort of character that Arteta likes, and Telegraph Sport understands that Merino has been aware of the possibility of joining Arsenal since last year. The plan has been in place for some time and now it is on Merino, the wrecking ball who can also play, to establish himself in north London.