Mikel Merino made his first ever appearance for Arsenal midweek in their Champions League game against Paris Saint-Germain.
It was the Spaniard’s first appearance for the club since the summer. Merino was injured in training after colliding with Gabriel. The 26-year old was sidelined for over a month as a result.
The midfielder arrived this summer from Real Sociedad. Merino made over 240 appearances for the Basque club and, was the player with the most duels won in Europe’s top five leagues last season (326). The 26-year old also lifted the EURO 2024 trophy with Spain this summer.
Mikel Merino transfer to fetch former club seven figure fee
Arsenal signed Merino for a reported €32million with an additional €5million in add-ons. The midfielder’s former club Osasuna, are set to benefit financially from his transfer.
According to Diario de Navarra, FIFA will pay Osasuna €1.17million for the transfer. The football governing body pay out 5% of any transfer fee between the clubs that trained a footballer between the ages of 12 and 23, as part of their solidarity mechanism.
Merino rose through the ranks at the Basque club, and the academy. He left Osasuna in 2016 when he was 20 years old.
FIFA will pay 3.5% of the midfielder’s transfer fee from the Arsenal deal to Osasuna. According to the report from Diario, this is the most Osasuna have received from FIFA’s scheme.
Arsenal boss says Spanish midfielder is ready to go
After making his cameo against PSG midweek, Mikel Merino will be fit enough to play more minutes according to Mikel Arteta:
“He had only one session with us, he was ready, he was really willing to be part of this today and obviously with the injuries and changes we had to make, we believe that he was the player that could help us in that phase. I think he’s done really well.”
Merino spoke about training with Arsenal for the first time, and how his recovery went when he was out. The midfielder says some of the training methods the Gunners use, are very new to him.
“They do some things that I have never seen in my career. The methods they use are completely new to me, so obviously it takes some time to adapt.
“I don’t want to tell everything that we do, but there is no rest between one moment and the other. They are always challenging you mentally with different stimuluses. It makes you always all the time aware of what is happening around you.”
