Gary Neville believes Pep Guardiola’s tactics against Arsenal sent a rather humiliating message to Mikel Arteta.
Arteta’s blushes were spared by Gabriel Martinelli, who scored a late equaliser against Man City to ensure the game wasn’t lost.
The Arsenal manager was given a taste of his own medicine as Guardiola instructed his team to sit back in a rather shocking change of tactics from the Man City boss.
Pundits were stunned by City’s game plan against Arsenal, but Gary Neville thinks it ultimately communicated what Guardiola really thought about the opposition.
Gary Neville thinks Pep Guardiola saw Arsenal as one-dimensional
It’s becoming expected that Arsenal won’t create many chances, which is extremely alarming when the end goal is to win the Premier League title.
After the contest, Neville spoke about Arsenal’s lack of creativity with regard to how Guardiola decided to set his team up.
Speaking on The Gary Neville Podcast, the Sky Sports pundit shared his view that Guardiola simply saw Arsenal as a ‘one-trick pony’
“I think the reason he’s [Guardiola] done that today will be that he’s recognising that Arsenal are a one-trick pony,” Neville explained.
“Set pieces are just a large percentage of their chances and goals, that you end up in a situation where you’ve just got to have big players in the box and a goalkeeper who comes and punches.”
Neville suspected that City loved Arsenal’s approach from set-play during the game, noting that the visitors sussed the Gunners out early on.
As per the pundit’s belief, Guardiola knew that if he limited Arsenal from set-play, the rest of the contest would be easier to dictate, which is exactly what happened.
No excuse for Arsenal being stale in attack
Arsenal dominated possession, but to what avail?
Martinelli scored a fantastic goal in injury time to salvage a point, but it should’ve never come to that.
As Sofascore data shows, Man City created the same number of big chances as Arsenal during the contest, despite only seeing a minimal amount of the ball, which points to Arteta’s problem.
With the attacking talent that the manager has at his disposal, it’s perplexing to see how limited Arsenal are going forward.
Guardiola realised this, so locked things down, with City’s back line forced open by a tremendous piece of play from Eberechi Eze and Martinelli.
Arteta needs to realise that his playing style in the final third is not sustainable, with the opposition knowing exactly how to limit the Gunners.
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