Right now, Arsenal’s ‘dark arts’ are front and centre of a lot of conversations across the league, clubs will both loathe and admire Mikel Arteta’s side to an extent.
In the latter years under Arsene Wenger, Arsenal were often accused of being too ‘nice’, too naive if you will.
That didn’t necessarily improve under Unai Emery, the Spaniard was struggling enough just to implement his tactics at the Emirates Stadium.
However, Mikel Arteta has slowly but methodically changed the culture at Arsenal, there’s an air of Chelsea under Jose Mourinho about the Gunners now.
Arsenal have an incredibly strong spine to their side and make the most of every small margin on the pitch – a proper football team.
Freddie Ljungberg said Arsenal needed to learn from Man City and they have
Five days before Arteta was appointed as Arsenal manager in 2019, Freddie Ljungberg was in charge as interim boss, leading the side for a short period.
Ljungberg’s last game as manager at Arsenal was a 3-0 loss to Man City at the Emirates, and the Swede’s comments after the game are now pertinent given the criticism the Gunners are facing today.
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Ljungberg suggested that Arsenal were too naive, saying they needed to learn to halt their opposition whilst in transition by any means possible – something City were prepared to do.
Incidentally, Arteta was sitting next to Pep Guardiola on the City bench that day, perhaps imagining where he could one day take Arsenal.
Ljungberg said: “What we can learn is that we got done again in transitions, but if you look at City, when we countered them, they took five yellow cards from just taking us down.
“That’s something we need to learn, to be a bit more cynical when opponents have a chance to counter because that is a weakness of ours.
“We need to take those fouls. That was intelligent by City. It’s obvious to see.”
Mikel Arteta won’t listen to the noise
Put simply, Arsenal won’t be paying much attention to the uproar about their tactics across the Premier League, it’s nothing that hasn’t been done before.
Instead, the club will be focusing on four home fixtures at the Emirates before the upcoming international break.
That being said, Declan Rice and Bukayo Saka have been delighted with news emerging from Arsenal recently, another great moment for the Hale End Academy.
And as Arteta’s side continue to go from strength to strength, they’ll probably quite enjoy how rattled their opponents appeared to be on Sunday.
Ian Wright questioned a decision Arteta made, but on the whole, the Spaniard is getting it spot on.
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