Ian Wright has made his Champions League final prediction.
While speaking to Mikel Merino on The Overlap, Wright turned to the Arsenal midfielder and revealed his gut feeling for the game.
“I get winning goal energy off of you at the moment,” he said. “I can just feel the story now, Mikel. You’ve been injured. You’ve just come back at the end there and then ‘Bam!’ winning goal.”
Merino responded with a smile and a chuckle before saying, “Yeah, hopefully.”
Confidently, Wright added, “You heard it here first.”
🙏 Which Arsenal player would you most like to see score the winning goal in the UCL final?
The story would write itself. Merino spent four months on the sidelines with a stress fracture to his foot so rare that even specialists had never encountered anything like it.
He made his return as a substitute on the final day of the Premier League season against Crystal Palace.
Now, just days later, he could be involved in the biggest club game in Arsenal’s history in Budapest on Saturday.
Merino himself had spoken in the same interview about the importance of channelling the joy of the Premier League title win into Saturday’s final.
“I think we have to use that joy,” he said. “Don’t get carried away with the feeling that we’ve achieved something magical and just be happy with that, but get that momentum, get that energy, that joy, to prepare these couple days before the final, and then give everything.
“We know it’s going to be a very tough game. PSG is an unbelievable team. But for certain, we know that we are as well, so it’s gonna be a tough one, a close one, and hopefully it’s going to be on our side.”
Mikel Merino backed to score winning goal in Champions League final
Merino has previous for delivering in big moments.
His spectacular header away at Newcastle early on in the season is one that springs to mind, and he also boasts big away goals against Liverpool and Chelsea.
Just prior to signing for Arsenal, he notched a dramatic 119th-minute winning header for Spain against Germany in the Euro 2024 quarter-finals.
Mikel Arteta himself is fully aware of Merino’s goalscoring threat, having used him as an auxiliary striker on multiple occasions over the past 18 months when the Gunners were short on options.
Ian Wright’s instinct of Merino bagging the winner in Budapest is certainly not far-fetched.
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