Souness insists Arsenal ‘get away’ with duping ‘dummy referees every week’ after Man City ‘dark arts’ claims

Liverpool legend Graeme Souness thinks Arsenal are getting away with tricking referees “every week” in the Premier League and claims their approach to the draw against Man City “may psychologically damage” the Gunners.

The champions needed a last-gasp John Stones equaliser deep into stoppage time to snatch a 2-2 draw against the 10-man Gunners in an absorbing Premier League contest at the Etihad Stadium last Sunday.

That brought relief for Man City after a frustrating second period in which the visitors had sat back to protect a 2-1 lead earned before Leandro Trossard was sent off for a second bookable offence.

Arsenal, runners-up for the past two seasons, did their best to disrupt and slow Man City, not only by playing deep but by time-wasting at every opportunity.

That brought some needle to the surface and intensified a growing rivalry, which has dominated the headlines over the past week.

And Souness thinks Arsenal – who bounced back to winning ways against Leicester City on Saturday – are conning referees “every week” and referees need to “wake up” to their antics from set-pieces.

Souness wrote in his Daily Mail column: “I know Man City are the very best at keeping the ball and are the very best passing team at this moment in time.

“And I know Mikel Arteta will point out that his team were only 30 seconds away from ­winning the game, having kept City out until the 98th minute.

“But I believe playing that way was foolhardy and dangerous because of City’s qualities. If you play 100 games like that, 95 times you will concede because there’s so much action in the box and the ball only once has to fall to the wrong person. On Sunday, it was John Stones.

“I know how I would have felt, on Sunday night and a few days afterwards, if I’d been a player in that Arsenal team, having left Manchester knowing that City had been so much better than my own side.

“No one in Mikel’s squad will be admitting it. But the big-player mentality is that you think you are the best player on the pitch. The best in your position in the country.

“No one in that Arsenal team will have enjoyed being dominated like that. Despite the big shifts put in for the cause, I simply don’t know what they take away from that game, other than the obvious point.

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“I fully understand that when you go down to 10 men, it has to be a different approach. But the negativity Arsenal showed may psychologically damage them going forward, as they must feel inferior to Manchester City after that.

“They have to park that now and get back to the football we’ve seen from them in the past few years.

“City’s players accused Arsenal of employing ‘dark arts’ in the game, though nothing I saw in that second half particularly ­surprised me.

“Time-wasting has always been part of the game and every team is guilty of it on ­occasions. It’s nothing near as bad as the exaggerated ­‘simulation’ that we see every weekend in our football.

“I also just don’t know when ­referees will wake up to what Arsenal do at set-pieces and ­corners.

“An accurate kicker of the ball delivers it under the crossbar, where aggressive ­players attack it, pinning and fouling the ­goalkeeper.

“It happened again at City. Gabriel ­Martinelli walks in, turns his back on the goal to obstruct Ederson and Gabriel scores. Do that anywhere else on the pitch and it’s a foul.

“If I was facing Arsenal, I would be taking three or four of my team-mates in front of the referee and pointing out to him what’s about to happen.

“Arsenal are getting away with it every week. They rotate the blockers, so the dummy referees don’t see it and deal with it.”