Signed For A Mere £6.5m, Why Newcastle United's Mikel Merino Is A Steal .

Watching Newcastle's Mikel Merino play it is difficult to fathom the reason for his inability to shine while under Thomas Tuchel in Borussia Dortmund last season. At 21, with more than 67 Segundo division games for hometown club Osasuna (his father Angel played over 500 times in Spanish football mostly in Osasuna), Merino departed for the German club in the summer of 2016. With an imposing body frame of 6ft 2in, Tuchel saw him more as a left sided centre back in a three man defence,  a position the Spaniard failed to adapt to while at the German club. 

Initially signed for £2.7 million on a season long loan from BVB,  it took only seven league games to convince Benitez and the board to cough out an additional £6.5m to sign him permanently on a five year contract in October. So what are the attributes that did this immediate magic? 

With a plan to gently introduce the youngster to the Premier League, Benitez quickly abandoned such plan when Jonjo Shevley was sent off in the season opener against Spurs which prompted the immediate introduction of the youngster with the mindset of a damage control. Having struggled in his first two games (Spurs and Huddersfield), Merino came to life in his third game (West Ham United) as the Tyneside club comprehensively beat Slaven Bilic's side 3-0 with the youngster winning the Man of the Match Award after making the highest number of forward passes, total passes, successful dribbles and possessions won back. A member of the Spanish U-19 side that won the 2015 Euros alongside the likes of Dani Ceballos and Marcos Asensio, Mikel Merino scored Spain's first goal of the tournament as he expertedly marshalled La Roja's midfield throughout tournament. With nine League games under his belt in Newcastle, it is easy to see why he has been compared to ex-Liverpool and Real Madrid midfielder Xabi Alonso considering his ability to play a defence splitting pass at the slightest opportunity as well as anchor and box-to-box midfield role. That is not all as the Spaniard is a strong tackler, ability to shot dangerous long range shots and near perfect in set-piece situations with his goal against Crystal Palace a perfect example. 

Sitting  seventh in the table with their ability to grind out results even when playing ugly , Rate Benitez has built his midfield on the Spanish youngster who has outshined the likes of the more established players  signed with him in the summer (Florian Lejeune, Joselu, Jacob Murphy and Christian Atsu).

This season the midfielder boasts awesome stats like 18m average pass length, 51 % average duels won and 76% average pass accuracy which illustrates his growing importance. Though it is still too early to tell, what is clear is that Mikel Merino is a "Steal" for Newcastle considering his early season displays.