{"id":4834,"date":"2025-01-28T19:09:00","date_gmt":"2025-01-28T20:09:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/preforeclosurefortunes.com\/?p=4834"},"modified":"2025-01-28T22:14:06","modified_gmt":"2025-01-28T22:14:06","slug":"mikel-arteta-defends-unbelievable-arsenal-star-after-jamie-carragher-criticism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/preforeclosurefortunes.com\/index.php\/2025\/01\/28\/mikel-arteta-defends-unbelievable-arsenal-star-after-jamie-carragher-criticism\/","title":{"rendered":"Mikel Arteta defends \u2018unbelievable\u2019 Arsenal star after Jamie Carragher criticism"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Jamie Carragher has criticised Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal signing (Pictures: Getty)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Arsenal<\/a> boss Mikel Arteta<\/a> has defended his \u00a332m signing Mikel Merino<\/a> following criticism from Jamie Carragher<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Merino signed a four-year deal with the Gunners after completing a big-money move from La Liga side Real Sociedad last summer<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The 28-year-old has started just a third of Arsenal’s Premier League games this season and Carragher recently questioned Arteta’s move for the Spaniard<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Writing in a column for The Telegraph<\/a> earlier this month, Carragher said: ‘Prioritising signing midfielder Mikel Merino ahead of another attacker last summer looks like a mistake. Merino is not a game-changer.’<\/p>\n

Carragher also questioned Arsenal’s \u00a332m deal on a recent episode of The Overlap<\/a>, saying: ‘I look at the business you did in the summer and the midfielder who came in, I wasn\u2019t quite sure why or where he would fit in or play.’<\/p>\n

But Arteta believes Merino has been showing some ‘very good’ signs in recent weeks and says the midfielder has been ‘quite unfortunate’ with injuries since arriving at the Emirates Stadium.<\/p>\n

Merino missed Arsenal’s 1-0 win over Wolves on Saturday<\/a> but returned to training earlier this week<\/a> ahead a huge Premier League clash with Manchester City this weekend.<\/p>\n

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Mikel Merino during an Arsenal training session (Picture: Getty)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

‘He\u2019s been quite unfortunate, to be honest,’ Arteta said at his pre-Champions League press conference on Tuesday evening. ‘But Mikel\u2019s character is unbelievable.<\/p>\n

‘He\u2019s so determined and now he has some rhythm, some momentum and has had some very good moments in the last few weeks with us.<\/p>\n

‘Unfortunately he had a little niggle but it was nothing serious, but we play every two and a half days so you miss two matches. He\u2019s fit again and available and it\u2019s great to have him in the team.’<\/p>\n

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Merino joined Arsenal from Real Sociedad last summer (Picture: Getty)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Arsenal conclude their promising Champions League group campaign against Girona on Wednesday night. The Gunners are third in the 36-strong table ahead of the final round of group games.<\/p>\n

‘We\u2019re here to win the game and in order to do that we\u2019re going to have to be better than them,’ Arteta said.<\/p>\n

‘They\u2019re a really good side, if you look at the games they\u2019ve played in the Champions League against top opposition, they\u2019ve made life very difficult for them.<\/p>\n

‘So tomorrow it will be a very strong team in order to achieve what we want to do because mathematically the qualifying at the moment is uncertain.’<\/a><\/p>\n

For more stories like this,\u00a0check our sport page<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Follow Metro Sport for the latest news on Facebook<\/a>,\u00a0<\/strong>Twitter<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Instagram<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jamie Carragher has criticised Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal signing (Pictures: Getty) Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta has defended his \u00a332m signing Mikel Merino following criticism from Jamie Carragher. Merino signed a four-year deal with the Gunners after completing a big-money move from La Liga side Real Sociedad last summer. The 28-year-old has started just a third of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4836,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[11],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/preforeclosurefortunes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4834"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/preforeclosurefortunes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/preforeclosurefortunes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preforeclosurefortunes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preforeclosurefortunes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4834"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/preforeclosurefortunes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4834\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4840,"href":"https:\/\/preforeclosurefortunes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4834\/revisions\/4840"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preforeclosurefortunes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4836"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/preforeclosurefortunes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preforeclosurefortunes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preforeclosurefortunes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}