Film study: Mikel Merino

The Real Sociedad midfielder doesn't jump off the stat sheet. Is his film better?

The Riccardo Calafiori whirlwind drama seems to be winding down, and thusly Arsenal are moving on to other targets. One of those seems to be Mikel Merino, longtime friend of Adam and guy with things in common with the Arsenal boss (name, longtime club, and so on).

Merino is 28 and therefore has been playing senior football for the better part of a decade, having made his professional debut way back in 2014 with Osasuna, which back then was a La Liga 2 (La Segunda) club. He played about 5,000 minutes over two seasons (54 starts) before earning a €4m move to Borussia Dortmund in 2016.

Dortmund used the Spaniard sparingly (two starts, nine appearances in all comps) in the 2016-2017 season before sending him to Rafa Benitez’s Newcastle, first on a season-long loan and then making it permanent for €7m.

Merino started 14 so-so games for Benitez in that campaign, but Newcastle had no plans to keep him long-term, flipping him to Real Sociedad for €12m less than two weeks after triggering their buy option. That was in 2018, and Merino has been at La Real ever since, having made 219 starts in all competitions, including 7 in the Champions League. He’s also emerged as a Spanish international since the move, now with 28 caps after the most recent Euros.

The stats

As I alluded to in the subhed for this article, Merino has never really been a standout from a statistical point of view. Keeping in mind I try to make my inner circle about an average ranking, he’s largely at or slightly above average in a lot of those counting stats you associate number 8s with, while being dominant in duels.

One common question on Merino is about his passing, which runs really hot and cold by the numbers. His career passing completion is about 76%, which is literally in the bottom 20% among midfielders more often than not. But he does generate a higher value as a passer than most, both in attacking and progressive terms.

I didn’t put him in my most recent round of rankings due to his age, but Mikel would be 15th in my deeper CM rankings and 16th in my more attacking midfielder rankings, which is pretty good if not amazing.

The film