{"id":617737,"date":"2026-09-16T10:24:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-16T10:24:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/617737\/"},"modified":"2026-09-16T10:24:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-16T10:24:10","slug":"mikel-arteta-praises-unique-arsenal-star-as-one-of-the-most-intelligent-players-he-has-ever-coached-as-gunners-cruise-past-ipswich-in-carabao-cup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/617737\/","title":{"rendered":"Mikel Arteta praises &#8216;unique&#8217; Arsenal star as &#8216;one of the most intelligent players&#8217; he has ever coached as Gunners cruise past Ipswich in Carabao Cup"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Speaking after the final whistle, the Arsenal boss singled out Merino for his exceptional footballing brain and selfless attitude. The 30-year-old has established himself as a vital squad member, even if his top-flight minutes have been heavily restricted this season.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He\u2019s unbelievable,&#8221; Arteta told reporters. &#8220;First of all, he\u2019s one of the most intelligent players that I\u2019ve seen and I\u2019ve worked with. Then the personality is just full of\u2026 I don\u2019t know, he just wants to give for everybody. He thinks about everything, he thinks about everybody.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The manager also highlighted the Spaniard&#8217;s tactical versatility. Arteta added: &#8220;He has qualities that are unique in football and in our team, his capacity to arrive in the box, he\u2019s capable of occupying different places, to play in different positions, to link play with people.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;And as a midfielder, the ability that he has to score goals like tonight is a different one that we\u2019ve seen lately, but another incredible one.\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Speaking after the final whistle, the Arsenal boss singled out Merino for his exceptional footballing brain and selfless&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":617738,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[4026,26600,85,43043,279438,46,18096,279437,2619,105],"class_list":["post-617737","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-arsenal","tag-carabao-cup","tag-il","tag-ipswich-town","tag-ipswich-town-vs-arsenal","tag-israel","tag-m-arteta","tag-m-merino","tag-premier-league","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617737","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=617737"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617737\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/617738"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=617737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=617737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=617737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}