Like my first day at SCHOOL! | Mikel Merino Arsenal Interview

Football

Year2026

Duration7m

Watch Now

7.7

Arsenal forward Mikel Merino talks through his injury hell, which saw him sidelined for five months. The Spaniard has returned just in time for Arsenal’s final Premier League match of the season against Crystal Palace, and next week’s Champions League final against PSG. TIMESTAMPS: 0:00 Intro 0:05 Odegaard? Amazing player, even better person. Massive for him to lift the Premier League. Everyone deserves it. 0:28 Foot feels great. I’m not even thinking about it anymore. I will give everything every single day to be as close to perfection when I’m back with the team. 0:59 Strange injury? I know the details. It was a stress fracture and it was something the specialists had not seen before. I always had the right motivation to move forward and come back from it. 1:58 The recovery was very hard at the beginning. I was playing with pain for a bit but I wasn’t expecting such a big fracture. I couldn’t believe it was going to be five months and missing the end of the season and potentially the World Cup. I could go into extinction or keep my head up. I couldn’t walk for two months. 3:27 I felt very loved when I was out injured. I wanted to be around the team. Sometimes you can be selfish but it’s nice to go through it with your teammates. 4:26 This morning I woke up and it was like the first day of school! Unbelievable to get so much love. 4:52 Can you play against Palace? Whenever the gaffer needs me I’ll be ready to do whatever he wants. 5:05 Football is about details. This season you could see a very mature team. A streak of games where we were not performing, in other seasons we might have crumbled. Everyone is pushing in the same direction. 6:23 It’s a long season. We’ve dropped points in a few games and we’ve bounced back. Wolves away, we bounced back so well after that. 7:09 It hasn’t been great watching from the stands. It’s not easy when you can’t contribute. It’s been a crazy couple of months where I had to help the team in a different role. I’ve still enjoyed every single second when we’ve won. @