“Again? Come on,” Mikel Merino says, with a look that gets across the “seriously guys” sense of it. But there is laughter, too, from the Arsenal midfielder-cum-emergency-centre-forward because he knows this is how it goes, how it has been for some time, pretty much every time he stops to speak to the media after a match.
People want to talk about Ethan Nwaneri; inside the club, outside the club. The buzz around the attacking midfielder as he tore his way through the youth ranks, having joined at nine, was palpable. During the 6-0 win at West Ham last season, the Arsenal substitutes wanted Mikel Arteta to get him on, which he did for the final 13 minutes.
