Premier League: Arsenal wins Chelsea with a header of Merino | Soccer | Sports

Around the search for a striker, the Arsenal makes the need virtue with the surprising choice of Mikel Merino to exercise that role. This Sunday he liquidated Chelsea (1-0) with a goal by the Navarrese footballer, that midfielder who paid 33 million euros last summer. “It is adapting well because it is a very different position from yours. We have not been very resilient for many months. Mikel is really wanting to do well, he has never played a striker, but he is scoring goals because he is very dangerous in the last meters, ”said the coach, who in December announced that they would go for a nine and in February he showed his disappointment for the club’s inability to recruit one. “We will have to be flexible,” he anticipated.

Gabriel Jesus recovers from a ligament injury in a knee. Havertz, which is not a nine area even if he leads the team’s scorers table, passed through the operating room for a hamstring injury and this season is not expected. Bukayo Saka has been discharged since the end of December although Arteta admits that he can reach the tie against Madrid, which is played on April 8 in London and 16 at Bernabéu. Sterling (assigned by Chelsea and unusable on this day) barely counts for Arteta, who prefers to use Martinelli and Trosssard open. Andrea Berta, recently liquidated in Atlético, will take possession shortly as sports director. The nine, meanwhile, is Merino.

“I didn’t need three centrals if the striker is,” said Nuno, coach of Nottingham Forest when his usual drawing varied against Arsenal. Nor are we facing a false nine such as Fábregas, who also played in that more position in Barça or with Spain than as gunner. In the defensive phase the arsenal parapetes with a first line of three men in which Merino works in the middle. With the ball it is more ductile because your love is to go down to help in the circulation of the ball rather than seek uncheck.

detail that is also news because there all eyes converge in the Galo Nicolas Jover, the guru of the stopped ball that impacts the Premier for a play book that sublimates the art of deception. Before Chelsea, he designed an action in which he monopolized looks in the small area with five men and a series of struggles that prevented the focus from falling on Merino, which sibilinely arrived from the height of the penalty spot to win the first stick to Reece James and finish off the network. The glove in the left -hander of Odegaard put the ball where it was precise. The arsenal is second to 12 points of the Liverpool and with just nine days to be played. Chelsea is fourth with half a premier on the hunt for this position: Manchester City, Newcastle, Brighton, Fulham, Aston Villa and Bournemouth are seen with options to reach their height. And, of course, to the fifth since it also seems that he will give a place in the Champions League thanks to the UEFA ranking of this campaign.

The maximum European competition is just the dream of Arsenal, which is not among the six English teams that raised it. And without as many resources as the greatest ones trust their options to the ingenuity of types such as Jover, recruited by Arteta after highlighting in Brentford and coinciding in Manchester City, a strategist that has a mural painted by fans in the vicinity of Emirates Stadium. Between this season and the previous one, the team adds 24 goals after corner kick, a barbarity. With the latter of Merino, there are already eleven who served to open the score in a bad game that was defined by that action because while Arsenal, who will not play again until April 1, swam and saved the clothes, Chelsea, of the twelve last times he played against Chelsea only won him in one three years ago and this time he did nothing to cover his defects. Among them the lack of nine.