Jeff Stelling has pleaded with Mikel Arteta and Arsenal to change their style of play.
The Gunners moved four points clear at the top of the Premier League table on Sunday afternoon, while they’re now six points above Manchester City and seven clear of Liverpool.
Mikel Arteta’s side cruised to another win and a clean sheet against Crystal Palace, courtesy of Eberechi Eze’s acrobatic first-half strike.
Conceding just three goals in nine league matches so far this season, Arsenal are unsurprisingly now facing accusations of making games not very entertaining.
Jeff Stelling says watching Arsenal is ‘like watching paint dry’
Arsenal have now kept ten clean sheets in 13 games across all competitions this season.
The Gunners haven’t conceded more than two goals in any of their last 100 league matches, while they’ve faced just two shots on target in each of the last four encounters.
It’s clear that Arsenal are a defensive powerhouse, able to sustain pressure and negate the opposition to next to nothing. This has, unsurprisingly, been met with disdain from certain pundits, who feel that the North Londoners are actually obliged to entertain the neutral.
Speaking on talkSPORT, Jeff Stelling lamented Arteta’s conservatism, urging the Spaniard and his team to be ‘just a bit more expansive’.
“They can’t keep relying on set-plays, they just can’t,” he said.
“This is the fourth game that they’ve been involved in in nine games this season that has finished 1-0. They didn’t win them all, obviously, and there’s a 1-1 in there as well.
“I love some of the Arsenal players, I love Saka, I love Odegaard when he’s playing, I love Eberechi Eze as well. But please, please just be a bit more expansive.
“Watching Arsenal against Palace, it was like watching paint dry. It was purgatory. I started watching that match and I’d had enough of it before Arsenal had even had a shot, actually. I’d turned over to watch Villa against City, which was a much better game.”
Arsenal’s job is to win, not to entertain the neutral
There’s a lot to unpack in Stelling’s plea to Arteta.
While it’s completely reasonable for the presenter to express how he’s bored by watching the Gunners, his tone suggests that he thinks that Arteta’s side are morally obligated to play in a way he finds aesthetically pleasing. They aren’t.
Arsenal have been chastised for not winning silverware in recent years and have been constantly reminded that this is all that matters.
| Position | Team | Played MP | Won W | Drawn D | Lost L | For GF | Against GA | Diff GD | Points Pts |
| 1 |  ArsenalArsenal | 9 | 7 | 1 | 1 | 16 | 3 | 13 | 22 |
| 2 |  BournemouthBournemouth | 9 | 5 | 3 | 1 | 16 | 11 | 5 | 18 |
| 3 |  TottenhamTottenham | 9 | 5 | 2 | 2 | 17 | 7 | 10 | 17 |
| 4 |  SunderlandSunderland | 9 | 5 | 2 | 2 | 11 | 7 | 4 | 17 |
Now that they look like winning trophies, they’re being lamented for the manner in which they’re going about it.
Arteta’s job is to deliver silverware to N5, not to entertain Stelling. If the presenter doesn’t want to watch Arsenal, then he’s of course entitled not to. However, he shouldn’t then criticise the Gunners for not winning if they open up and start leaking too many goals.
Arsenal’s set-piece goalscoring is also clearly sustainable. They have players who can deliver the ball expertly, they have players who can attack the ball inside the box, and they’ve been doing it for several years now.
People are frustrated to see the Gunners doing so well, and are trying to cope with this by ridiculing their style of play.
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