Merino injury blow : Madueke gets a goal : City drop points

Morning all.

For fleeting period, bar the 16 year old ankle of Max Dowman, it looked as if Arsenal had an entirely clean bill of health. I guess we should know better. There was a little doubt in my mind over Mikel Merino after he missed the midweek game against Kairat, but that was one where the likes of William Saliba and Leandro Trossard were left out as they deal with little niggles, so it could easily have been something similar.

Update: Thanks to @Harpelius on BlueSky for reminding me Merino was suspended for that game. Doh!

The fact he wasn’t in the squad for the Leeds game raised an eyebrow for me though. I know the squad is big, and some players were going to miss out, but Merino is such a favourite of Mikel Arteta it was a bit of a worry not to see him included. Then yesterday it was reported he’d suffered an injury, a broken bone in his foot sustained in the game against Man United, before Arsenal themselves confirmed the Spanish international will need surgery, saying:

Further to sustaining a foot injury towards the end of our game against Manchester United on January 25, subsequent assessments and specialist reviews have confirmed Mikel Merino has a bone injury in his right foot.

Mikel will have surgery in the coming days and will then begin his recovery and rehabilitation programme. Mikel is expected to be out of action for an extended period, with the aim of returning to full training before the end of the season.

Obviously if surgery is required, this is not a routine injury, and it puts his participation for the rest of this campaign in some serious doubt. Beyond us, he’s got the World Cup to think about too, but from our perspective it’s a real blow to lose a player of his experience and versatility. I know he’s often seen as someone more functional than anything else, but in 33 appearances so far this season he’s scored 6 goals and provided 3 assists. He brings a versatility to the squad with his ability to play in different positions, and I think he’ll be a big miss.

On top of Bukayo Saka picking up whatever injury he sustained in the warm-up at Elland Road, it’s a blow when, at the time of writing, we’re trying to compete in four competitions and need all hands on deck. Hopefully there’s good news about Saka and perhaps we’ll find out more later when the manager meets the press ahead of tomorrow’s game, but for now, all we can do is wish Mikel Merino a quick and successful recovery.

I saw in David Ornstein’s piece in The Athletic (£) some mention that Arsenal might try and look at the transfer market to see if they can find a replacement, but given the deadline is this evening at 7pm, I’d be very surprised. Not to mention that players like Eberechi Eze and Christian Norgaard, to varying degrees, will surely want to demonstrate to the manager that they can step up and fill the gap Merino leaves.

Meanwhile, yesterday turned out to be a good day for Arsenal in the Premier League. I was checking the scores while playing pool in town yesterday (I wasn’t going to spend my Sunday watching Sp*rs after all), and when I saw they were 2-0 down I thought that was going to be that. Well, blimey. Man City dropped a couple of points, making our response against Leeds even more important, and with Aston Villa losing earlier in the day, the table now looks healthier than it did last week.

I guess it’s just a reminder that things can change very quickly in this league. I don’t think there’s anyone who would be foolish enough to start counting chickens at this point, there are too many games to go, but in the very short term we can enjoy the fact our title rivals have had another poor result. In the end we can only control what we can control, but it’s handy if other teams fall short while we’re doing that.

Also, Noni Madueke has now scored his first Premier League goal for the club after the ‘Goal Accreditation Panel’ changed what was initially given as an own goal against Leeds keeper Karl Darlow to one for the Arsenal winger. I did say this yesterday, it looked on target when the keeper flapped, so I think he deserves to have it. That’s four in all competitions now, with the other three coming in the Champions League.

Elsewhere, Oleksandr Zinchenko has joined Ajax on a permanent deal after his loan to Nottingham Forest didn’t work out. There was a period when he helped bring real life to to our football, especially in that first title challenge, but the litany of left-backs we’ve used in his stead tells something of a story. Some of it was injury related, obviously, as he was always in and out with various issues (usually calf related), but Mikel Arteta also decided he needed a different profile of player in there. Anyway, best of luck to him.

Finally for today, huge congratulations to Arsenal Women as they became the inaugural winners of FIFA Women’s Champions Cup (a far more worthy inaugural prize than some they’ve handed out lately), with a 3-2 win over Corinthians at the Emirates Stadium yesterday. Tim and the crew have you covered over on Arseblog News with the report and goal clips, Renee Slegers reaction, and there’ll be an Arsenal Women Arsecast later to soak it all in. You can also watch the highlights on Sky Sports here.

Ok, I’ll leave it there this morning. Stand by for an Arsecast Extra, as always. We’ve already put out the call for questions on BlueSky @gunnerblog.bsky.social and @arseblog.com. So fire away using the hashtag #arsecastextra – or if you’re an Arseblog Member on Patreon, leave your question in the #arsecast-extra-questions channel on our Discord server. The pod should be out mid-morning.

For now, have a good one.

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