Rumour mill alight with Merino and Nketiah chat

Morning all.

A very quick Friday blog for you, because there’s nothing concrete going on, but lots of rumours. First, Mikel Merino is reportedly not in the Real Sociedad squad for their upcoming game, with increasing suggestion this is because he’s closer and closer to a move to Arsenal.

Perhaps, and this is a long-shot, things have accelerated over the last couple of days. Other reports say this is due to injury, but it does seem as if there’s a lot of smoke around the Spanish international, and most likely some fire too. Fabrizio Romano says talks between the clubs are ‘active’, and that the player wants to join, and that’s backed up by some other reports I’ve seen.

So, let’s see what happens. His arrival is certainly an interesting one in that he might redefine what we think Declan Rice’s role might be this season. If we have concerns about the age and the legs of Jorginho and Thomas Partey, they could easily be offset by the fact Rice has said multiple times he thinks his best position is at ‘6’, and that pretty much solves that problem because he’s a very, very good player. If he was the man anchoring our midfield, would anyone really have any complaints?

Merino as the ‘left 8′, with Havertz also an option there, gives us a bit more depth in that position, but the knock-on effect of that is that it leaves Gabriel Jesus as the first choice centre-forward. If he can maintain his pre-season form and sharpness, that’s not exactly a massive problem either, but there is risk given his injury record. Not to mention he can’t play every game, and when the other big rumour of this morning is Eddie Nketiah’s move to Marseille being back on, it means Arsenal need to be active in the forward market too.

I don’t know how much truth there is in this Eddie story, I’ve seen stuff on social media about how he’s been at the Marseille airport, and all I can think of is the lunacy of transfer plane tracking which most of the time turns out to be complete nonsense. But, I think what is clear to me is that it’s time for him to move on for the sake of his own career. Whether that’s Marseille now, or an English club a little later in the window, the best thing for him is to find somewhere he can play regularly and, hopefully, score a lot of goals for his new club.

The same applies to Reiss Nelson who didn’t even get on in a friendly when Mikel Arteta played literal children, so I fully expect him to leave before the end of the window. If/when they depart, there’s room in the forward line for someone else. Whether it’s a winger, a striker, someone versatile who can play across the front line, your guess is as good as mine. There have been a few names mentioned here and there, but nothing particularly concrete, so we’ll just have to bide our time and see what happens.

Finally for today, I enjoyed James’ piece in The Athletic yesterday, revealing one of Mikel Arteta’s little tricks to keep his players on their toes:

At a dinner with his players, Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta secretly hired a team of professional pickpockets. The sleight-of-hand artists were tasked with going round the tables, pinching phones and wallets from an unwitting first-team squad.

At the end of the meal, Arteta stood up and asked them the team to empty their pockets. A number of players were missing valuable items. The idea was to teach his squad the importance of being ready, alert and prepared — at all times.

It is funny, and a bit unhinged, and the first thing I thought was that another name for ‘professional pickpockets’ is ‘thieves’, but there you go. On the other side though, so much of football and coaching is about repetition, practising drills and patterns etc, and as much as there’s satisfaction when those things pay off on the pitch, they can also be pretty boring when you’re doing them over and over and over again on the training ground.

So, when you’re trying to keep 25 young millionaires engaged, as much as people might scoff a bit, things like this are probably very effective. I put no boundaries on where Arteta might go next. A 2026 piece in The Athletic:

“And in an effort to motive his players further, Arteta sanctioned the kidnapping of each player’s first born child (or dog for those without kids). A series of puzzles to pay the ransom was seen as a problem solving exercise.

“All the while, Arteta and Edu barbecued burgers and hotdogs for the children while frantic players desperately tried to make their families complete again.”

If it means points for us, I’m all for it. Right, have yourselves a great Friday, and there’s a new Arsecast below if you haven’t had a chance to listen yet.

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