{"id":25025,"date":"2025-10-14T23:45:49","date_gmt":"2025-10-15T03:45:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/2025\/10\/14\/2-shots-on-target-2-goals-arsenal-star-sends-message-to-arteta-who-has-a-9-9-national-team-rating\/"},"modified":"2025-10-14T23:45:49","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T03:45:49","slug":"2-shots-on-target-2-goals-arsenal-star-sends-message-to-arteta-who-has-a-9-9-national-team-rating","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/2025\/10\/14\/2-shots-on-target-2-goals-arsenal-star-sends-message-to-arteta-who-has-a-9-9-national-team-rating\/","title":{"rendered":"2 shots on target, 2 goals: Arsenal star sends message to Arteta, who has a 9.9 national team rating"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"ez-toc-container\" class=\"ez-toc-v2_0_74 counter-hierarchy ez-toc-counter ez-toc-grey ez-toc-container-direction\">\n<div class=\"ez-toc-title-container\">\n<p class=\"ez-toc-title\" style=\"cursor:inherit\">Table of Contents<\/p>\n<span class=\"ez-toc-title-toggle\"><a href=\"#\" class=\"ez-toc-pull-right ez-toc-btn ez-toc-btn-xs ez-toc-btn-default ez-toc-toggle\" aria-label=\"Toggle Table of Content\"><span class=\"ez-toc-js-icon-con\"><span class=\"\"><span class=\"eztoc-hide\" style=\"display:none;\">Toggle<\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-icon-toggle-span\"><svg style=\"fill: #999;color:#999\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" class=\"list-377408\" width=\"20px\" height=\"20px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" fill=\"none\"><path d=\"M6 6H4v2h2V6zm14 0H8v2h12V6zM4 11h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2zM4 16h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2z\" fill=\"currentColor\"><\/path><\/svg><svg style=\"fill: #999;color:#999\" class=\"arrow-unsorted-368013\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"10px\" height=\"10px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.2\" baseProfile=\"tiny\"><path d=\"M18.2 9.3l-6.2-6.3-6.2 6.3c-.2.2-.3.4-.3.7s.1.5.3.7c.2.2.4.3.7.3h11c.3 0 .5-.1.7-.3.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7zM5.8 14.7l6.2 6.3 6.2-6.3c.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7c-.2-.2-.4-.3-.7-.3h-11c-.3 0-.5.1-.7.3-.2.2-.3.5-.3.7s.1.5.3.7z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<nav><ul class='ez-toc-list ez-toc-list-level-1 ' ><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-1\" href=\"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/2025\/10\/14\/2-shots-on-target-2-goals-arsenal-star-sends-message-to-arteta-who-has-a-9-9-national-team-rating\/#Mikel_Merino_shows_Arsenal_what_he_can_do_with_great_Spanish_play\" >Mikel Merino shows Arsenal what he can do with great Spanish play<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-2\" href=\"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/2025\/10\/14\/2-shots-on-target-2-goals-arsenal-star-sends-message-to-arteta-who-has-a-9-9-national-team-rating\/#Is_there_too_much_competition_at_Arsenal\" >Is there too much competition at Arsenal?<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n<p>Mikel Merino celebrates after Spain&#8217;s victory over Bulgaria (Photo by Florencia Tan Jun\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n<div id=\"article-body\">\n<!-- Article Start --><\/p>\n<p><strong>Arsenal midfielder Mikel Merino had another great performance for the Spanish national team on Tuesday night, scoring twice in the 4-0 win over Bulgaria.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The 29-year-old appears to be the national team&#8217;s Mr Reliable at the moment, scoring two goals in this game and also scoring an impressive hat-trick in the recent international break.<\/p>\n<p>However, Merino doesn&#8217;t always start for Arsenal, and when he does, it&#8217;s often in a role that doesn&#8217;t quite suit him.<\/p>\n<p>Merino now appears to be sending a clear message to Gunners manager Mikel Arteta &#8211; he is a goalscorer and, if used regularly and in the right way, can be a top-class performer.<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Mikel_Merino_shows_Arsenal_what_he_can_do_with_great_Spanish_play\"><\/span>Mikel Merino shows Arsenal what he can do with great Spanish play<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<figure class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mikel Merino celebrates his goal for Spain (Photo by Florencia Tan Jun\/Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Merino is certainly talented enough to deserve more chances at Arsenal, with the former Real Sociedad player scoring 9.9 points on WhoScored against Bulgaria.<\/p>\n<p>According to their stats, Merino had two shots on target, scored on both of them, also made one tackle and an interception, and completed 87% of his passes.<\/p>\n<p>Although this was an appearance in an attacking midfield role just behind the main striker, Merino had little chance to play there for Arsenal.<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Is_there_too_much_competition_at_Arsenal\"><\/span>Is there too much competition at Arsenal?<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>Merino played a number of games up front last season and was very impressive, making it perhaps his most successful period in the team.<\/p>\n<p>However, competition for a place at the Emirates Stadium is fierce, so there is almost always no room available for him.<\/p>\n<p>Martin Odegaard tends to be Arsenal&#8217;s most attacking midfielder, but the way he plays is different and it is unclear how much the rest of Arteta&#8217;s tactics will need to be adjusted to fit the role Merino will play in Spain.<\/p>\n<p>Still, these performances send a message to Arteta and it will be interesting to see if he can come up with a way to make this work happen.<\/p>\n<p><!-- Article End -->\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mikel Merino celebrates after Spain&#8217;s victory over Bulgaria (Photo by Florencia Tan Jun\/Getty Images) Arsenal midfielder Mikel Merino had another great performance for the Spanish national team on Tuesday night, scoring twice in the 4-0 win over Bulgaria. The 29-year-old appears to be the national team&#8217;s Mr Reliable at the moment, scoring two goals in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25026,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[40],"class_list":{"0":"post-25025","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\/25025","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=25025"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25025\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25026"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}