Arsenal icon Ian Wright has mounted a defence of Mikel Arteta’s tactics against Manchester City.
Arsenal and Manchester City played out a 2-2 draw in a Premier League clash at the Etihad Stadium on Sunday.
Whilst Mikel Arteta’s side carried a 2-1 lead into the break, the game was turned on its head just before half-time with the sending off of Leandro Trossard.
Trossard was dismissed for delaying a restart, and Arteta responded to this setback by sending his side out with a far more defensive mentality in the second period.
Arsenal’s defensive effort was praised by Micah Richards, but the Gunners’ resolve was broken in the dying moments of the match as John Stones snatched an equaliser for the hosts.
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Roy Keane furious about Arsenal approach vs Manchester City
Manchester United icon Roy Keane has been far less complimentary about the methods Arteta employed in an effort to shut out the reigning Premier League champions.
Speaking on Stick to Football, the former midfielder said: “If Tony Pulis, Sam Allardyce, Steve Bruce, Neil Warnock set a team up like that for the second-half, they’re dinosaurs.
“Arsenal set up, and I mean nothing wrong with defending, I’m on about them when they did get the ball, a couple of times they were just booting it out of play. But Arsenal do it, it’s like, ‘Oh, brilliant.’”
“What should they have done?” Ian Wright asked.
Keane continued: “I don’t mind defending, but I’m saying when they did win the ball, when they won it back every now and again, try and look after it, try and get up the pitch.
“This is Arsenal we’re talking about. I’m not talking about a Championship team that’s gone in the FA Cup where they’re hanging in there.
“Nothing wrong with defending and going deep, no problem. But when they got it, you go, ‘can you try and do something?’ They were just booting it up the pitch.”
Defending his former club, Wright replied: “But we’ve seen what Man City do to teams that go down to ten men, there you have to do something different – it nearly worked!”
Gary Neville then shared his view: “I did think on Sunday that the five at the back was the right thing to do. I did think that he would then go with three in front and then one [up front].
“I’m torn here a little bit, Wrighty, because I did think Arsenal’s concentration and defensive work was brilliant… I thought Arsenal had to score in the second half to probably get the win.”
Ian Wright right to defend Mikel Arteta
Bukayo Saka claimed not to care about criticisms of Arsenal’s tactics prior to this match, and insisted that Arsenal would play to win against Manchester City. The reality is that the Gunners came within seconds of achieving exactly that.
Had the Gunners tried to take on the Cityzens with an attacking mindset whilst outnumbered then they would likely have been picked apart and well beaten. The consequences of such a defeat could have been colossal both in terms of the title race and the damage it would’ve done to Arsenal’s confidence.
Arteta took the most sensible approach, and whilst it ultimately failed to bring about a magnificent result, it succeeded in preventing a damaging one.
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