Arsenal beat Leicester City 2-0 at the King Power Stadium on Saturday afternoon.
The Gunners were lackluster for much of the game, struggling to create chances with their makeshift front-line.
However, they found the breakthrough with nine minutes to play, when Mikel Merino nodded in Ethan Nwaneri’s exceptional cross.
The midfielder then doubled his lead, converting an excellent Leandro Trossard delivery on the break.
The result sees Mikel Arteta’s team stay second in the league, moving to within four points of league leaders Liverpool.
- READ MORE: Mikel Arteta has just done something at Arsenal for the first time in 1,364 days vs Leicester City
Five things you missed from Leicester vs Arsenal
While the banal nature of the games was obvious, there were several other things you might have missed.
Leicester’s protest
Arsenal fans may be somewhat frustrated by their owners due to the club’s lack of January transfer activity, but the Leicester fans’ feelings towards their club’s hierarchy is on a different level of hostility.
Leicester supporters planned a protest against the East Midlanders’ board, and expressed their displeasure in the 14th minute.
A banner was revealed, reading, ‘internal review, you don’t have a clue’.
Meanwhile, chants of ‘we want Rudkin out’ rang around the King Power Stadium, with the Foxes faithful advocating for their director of football, John Rudkin, to leave the club.
Arsenal’s offside woes
The Gunners struggled to create any meaningful chances in the first half, with their attacks continuously being cut short by Arteta’s attacking players being caught in offside positions.
The likes of Trossard and Raheem Sterling were regularly straying offside, lazily not paying attention to the Leicester defensive line.
Arsenal ended the first half with four offsides, all of which were avoidable and completely put an end to promising attacks.
Declan Rice’s advanced role
Arsenal will be without Kai Havertz for the rest of the season after the German sustained a serious hamstring injury this week.
Thus, the Gunners have to find a new focal point, and appear to have turned towards Declan Rice to provide this.
Rice has been deployed in advanced areas previously, but in this game there was a clear emphasis on the Englishman breaking into the box with aggressive runs from deep.
Constantly the target for long-balls from the likes of Jurrien Timber and William Saliba, the former West Ham man looked Arsenal’s most likely goal-scorer in a drab first half.
Arsenal’s bleak bench
With Arsenal struggling to muster many significant opportunities throughout the game, Arteta would’ve been looking to his bench to introduce someone who could change the game.
Unfortunately for the Spaniard, he had little to call upon.
The Gunners had five defenders on their bench, including Ben White, Riccardo Calafiori and Oleksandr Zinchenko.
The only senior recognised forward Arteta could’ve introduced was 22-year-old academy graduate Nathan Butler-Oyedeji, who has made just one senior appearance for the club.
Mikel Merino played as a striker
With this bleak aforementioned bench, Arteta had to resort to using Merino up front for the final 25 minutes.
The Spaniard was brought on in place of Sterling, and went straight up top, with Trossard moving out to the left.
Not accustomed to the role, Merino looked awkward attempting to hold the ball up with his back to goal and trying to provide Arsenal with a focal point.
However, the Euro 2024 winner popped up with the crucial moment, winning the game for the Gunners with a towering header from Nwaneri’s cross.
He then added his second, tapping home from an excellent delivery from Trossard.
Paul Merson said he didn’t want to see Merino as a striker this week – the pundit has egg on his face now.
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