Arsenal hero Mikel Merino dedicated his match-winning brace against Leicester to his wife after forgetting about Valentine’s Day.
The Spaniard secured what could be a vital three points at the King Power Stadium as he clambered off the bench to play in an unfamiliar striker role. But it turned out to be a masterstroke as he twice found the net.
And speaking after the final whistle, he claimed his double was a present for his wife Lola after failing to mark Valentine’s Day. Asked if he could play the role more often, he said: “I don’t know. I don’t think so, to be honest. It’s funny because I’ve only scored two more braces in my career and it’s the first time I’ve scored a brace coming off the bench as a striker.
“But it’s a good day to score because I forgot to give my wife something for Valentine’s Day so this goes to her, so I think she’ll appreciate this more than a rose or some chocolates.”
Merino has been married to his wife Lola since January 2024. And while she wasn’t feeling the love, one man who did was Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta.
The Spaniard was full of praise for his compatriot and had a sneaking suspicion that the midfielder was set to be his hero. He said: “I didn’t think about him, to be fair. It was a lot of debate. I didn’t want to drive him crazy. I said to him this morning that he might play there, we believe he could sit there if the game needed the context. He won the game for us.
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“But Mikel has got that. It’s a good threat because he can smell danger. He can anticipate the action. He’s got really good timing to arrive to certain areas. And then, obviously, he has the capacity to execute with a lot of parts of his body. And he needed the delivery. He certainly had that as well and he put it in the back of the net.”
Merino, 28, has now scored four goals for Arsenal since his summer switch from Real Sociedad. And despite that handy habit, Arteta claimed that some more match-winning heroics could be required from some of his other stars between now and the end of the season. He said: “Yeah, we’re going to have to share that, and we know that we’re going have a various contexts.
“We’re going to have to make a sub because a player is not performing or the opposition is doing something else or we’ve got a yellow card or it’s fatigue, and that’s going to restrict what we can do in terms of the personnel. But we have prepared for different scenarios. Then those scenarios have to work. Hopefully they will work as good as Mikel worked today.”
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