Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta explained why he chose Mikel Merino over Declan Rice to start midfield with Nottingham Forest today.<\/strong><\/p>\n The Gunners won 3-0 with an impressive performance at Emirates Stadium, but some fans will certainly be surprised that Rice didn’t make Arteta’s starting XI.<\/p>\n In the end, it wasn’t that important. Rice later appeared as an alternative, and Arteta reduced the importance of the decision when he spoke after the match.<\/p>\n As Arsenal.com quoted, Arteta suggested he was keen to give Merino the opportunity to start after performing with the Spanish national team during an international break.<\/p>\n But not only that, it also sounded like a normal rotation. Perhaps Rice will start the team’s next game.<\/p>\n “Mikel (Merino) comes back after scoring four goals in two games in a very high emotional state. I want to use it when the player is in that moment,” the Spanish tactician said.<\/p>\n “He wants to play him because it brings something different to the qualities they have. Declan (US) comes in and either makes an impact right away or plays the next game.<\/p>\n Rice is a star performer for Arsenal since a big move from West Ham a few years ago, so it seems unlikely he’ll drop the pecking order soon.<\/p>\n England International has had to take a break from time to time this season, and the AFC has already discovered that they have some injuries.<\/p>\n They certainly don’t want to repeat last season, but key names like Bukayo Saka, Kai Herberts and Gabriel Magalhais missed many games.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Photos of Mikel Merino Warming Up and Arsenal Manager Mikel Arteta (Justin Setterfield, Alex Pantling\/Getty Images)) Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta explained why he chose Mikel Merino over Declan Rice to start midfield with Nottingham Forest today. The Gunners won 3-0 with an impressive performance at Emirates Stadium, but some fans will certainly be surprised that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23347,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[40],"class_list":{"0":"post-23346","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-football"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23346"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23346\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Mikel Arteta on Declan Rice’s bench for Arsenal<\/h2>\n