Mikel Arteta hailed Mikel Merino’s performance against Slavia Prague as a “joy” after he fired Arsenal to victory.
Merino struck twice in the second half as Arsenal ran out 3-0 winners in Prague to maintain their perfect start to this season’s Champions League.
As was the case towards the end of last season, Merino was tasked with playing as a No9 because Gabriel Jesus, Kai Havertz and Viktor Gyokeres are all injured.
The Spaniard scored seven goals when playing as a striker last season and he continued his fine form to down Slavia Prague.
“It’s a joy to have him,” said Arteta. “It’s his versatility on the pitch, the things that he can do. It’s his mindset, it’s his leadership, it’s the way he is as a person.
“Today we are missing a lot of attacking players and we have to find different solutions. He comes in Champions League and scores two goals.
“You have to invent options. You can always have options if you invent them. Obviously, Mikel hasn’t played there before in his career, but we had a good experience of last season and the way he reacted and performed in that position.
“Obviously, we believe that today, the way they were set up as well, was a good chance for him to perform.
“My view was always he had really good timing and capacity to finish in the box, especially one touch.
“Talking to him and making sure that he plays closer to the box and he identifies the opportunities, the timing, the way he needs to attack the spaces in relation to how they defend the box.
“Today it was a bit different as well, the way they set up. It’s obviously his quality, he will need to learn and practice every day.”
Arsenal’s win over Slavia was their 10th victory in a row in all competitions.
It was also their eighth clean sheet on the spin, equalling a club record set all the way back in 1903.
“That’s a long time ago, so it tells you about the difficulty of achieving it,” said Arteta.
“There’s a lot of work there to achieve that. The most pleasing thing is probably not the record, it’s the mindset of the players.
“They are talking about how we can still do better. There was one or two situations that we could have resolved better. If we do that, we can keep improving and that record will have a bigger meaning.”
