Gary Neville slams one Arsenal star who kept ‘falling over’ in draw against Man City
Gary Neville has hit out at David Raya’s kicking as Arsenal drew 0-0 with Manchester City in their crucial Premier League clash on Easter Sunday.
The Gunners and the Citizens shared the spoils as Liverpool took advantage earlier in the day to beat Brighton and move two points clear at the top of the Premier League.
Neville: Neither manager will be happy with their quality on the ball
Neville described the first half as “strange” as neither side were able to take control of their crucial encounter with the match ending scoreless.
Arsenal goalkeeper Raya produced a good save to deny Nathan Ake in the first half but Neville was concerned about the Spaniard’s kicking throughout the opening 45 minutes.
“Raya’s kicking has been terrible,” Neville told Sky Sports. “It’s not helping him that he keeps falling over as he kicks it.
“It’s been a strange first half. Neither manager will be happy with their quality on the ball. Maybe they are waiting for the other to make a mistake.”
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Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta was pleased with his side’s performance against the defending Premier League champions.
Giving his thoughts on the match overall, Arteta told reporters: “It was a thrilling game, a really tough match, a very demanding opponent but I think we competed really well.
“Defensively, I think we were outstanding. We had to go and put them under pressure higher up the pitch – I think we were really good and created a lot of difficulties.
“When they are that good that they get you in this low block, it’s very difficult to get out of that, they drop a lot of players and I think we prevented the spaces really well and that’s the difficulty. It’s the first time they haven’t scored at home in three years, so that’s the outstanding team that they are.
“And then the downside is that we had some big situations to score, we didn’t make the most out of them and the next step is with the ball to have much more composure, especially in the first phase to attack better.”
Arteta happy with two clean sheets against Man City
Arsenal beat Man City 1-0 in the reverse fixture and when asked whether he takes pride in two clean sheets against Pep Guardiola’s side, Arteta replied: “Huge – it’s extremely difficult to do that but that tells you the commitment of every player, the discipline that they showed and how they compete.
“One thing is to play a football match and the other is to compete [in] it. Against this team, we did that today really, really well.”
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