Merino reveals the dressing room meeting that 'won' Arsenal the title

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Mikel Merino has pinpointed a single dressing room meeting as the moment Arsenal's Premier League title charge was truly won, revealing it came in the immediate aftermath of a damaging draw with Wolves in February.

Arsenal had led 2-0 against a Wolves side sitting bottom of the table before collapsing late on to let the points slip, a result that raised fresh questions about the Gunners' mentality during a long wait for a league title. Merino admitted the players themselves were rattled by the capitulation.

"One slip, and all we heard was \'same old Arsenal\'," Merino said. "To be honest, there were doubts inside the team too. Giving away a 2 to 0 lead should never happen. But the day after the game, the players had a meeting inside the dressing room, without the boss."

Players took ownership without Arteta

According to Merino, the meeting was not about tactics but about character, with the squad addressing how they would respond to setbacks without relying on Mikel Arteta to solve every problem for them.

"Everyone spoke up. Nobody talked about tactics. This was about how a group of human beings handle adversity together. I spoke about how I saw the team from the outside, and I said that this was something we as players had to handle, because the boss couldn't do everything for us," he said. "When one person has so many tasks at one club, you need leaders who can figure things out on their own. Well, at this club, we do. In my view, that was the day we won the title. Even when we lost to Bournemouth and City, that meeting kept us together."

Merino was not even involved in that meeting as a fit player. He was sidelined for the period with a serious stress fracture in his foot, an injury so unusual that the specialist who scanned it had never seen a break in that part of the foot before, despite three decades of experience and consultations with five of the world's leading experts.

A career fear and a World Cup redemption

Merino revealed he feared his career could be over during his recovery. "My brain already understood, but my heart needed me to say it out loud," he said of the moment he broke the news to his wife, Lola.

He recovered in time to make one substitute appearance on the final day of the Premier League season, a cameo he pushed Arteta to risk in order to force his way into Spain's World Cup squad. The gamble paid off, with Merino scoring stoppage time and late winners against Portugal and Belgium respectively before playing a part in the final against Argentina, where he blocked a Lionel Messi shot with his face.

"I went down like I'd been shot, which I had," Merino said. "I got hit so hard that I was actually blind in one eye for the rest of the match."

Merino's account, given to the Evening Standard, offers a rare look inside the dressing room culture that Arteta's squad credit for turning their title charge around during a difficult winter.