Merino - who mustered Arsenal's only shot on target - gave the ball away five times in the 1-0 defeat to Newcastle United and failed to record a successful tackle before being brought off on the hour. Rising academy star Nwaneri, 17, came on for Gabriel Martinelli at the same time and completed all six of his passes despite only having 11 touches, but was unable to prevent the loss. Wright has suggested his teammates did not help matters.
He criticised Arsenal’s lack of creativity on the day and is refusing to adopt the excuse of Martin Odegaard’s injury absence. He questioned the summer decisions to loan out Fabio Vieira to Porto and sell Emile Smith Rowe to Fulham, both of whom are attacking midfielders.
"Yeah, there were [too many players off-key] today,” he told Premier League Productions. "Odegaard has been out for a while now. Fabio Vieira, we hadn’t seen too much of him, and he was a player meant to be in the same mould.
“Emile Smith Rowe has moved on. We have seen Ethan Nwaneri come on, a youngster who’s got to come on in a game for a team that’s trying to challenge for the title. It’s a lot of pressure on him.”
Wright is of the view that Merino failed to make much of an impact in the midfield at St James’ Park. He unpacked his overall annoyance at where the Gunners find themselves at this point in the season, amid the possibility they drop out of the top four by the end of the weekend.
“You just feel like, at this stage of the season with 10 games in, we should not be playing and being as tepid as we are,” Wright added. “Not creating enough, not putting them under enough pressure.
“I thought Merino wasn’t tight enough in and around the midfield, I think he’s still getting up to speed. It really is quite frustrating to be 10 games in and feeling like you do now.
“That’s only because we know tough it is to try and chase down a Manchester City. One shot on target against Bournemouth, one shot on target today - it’s not good enough for a team going for a title.
“There’s a lot of work to be done in that dressing room. We can’t keep looking and saying we’re missing Martin Odegaard, because we know we’re missing that.”
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