Neville explains how Arteta ‘jumping around’ is hampering his Arsenal players | OneFootball

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Football365

·25 September 2023

Neville explains how Arteta ‘jumping around’ is hampering his Arsenal players

Article image:Neville explains how Arteta ‘jumping around’ is hampering his Arsenal players

Mikel Arteta shouts instructions at his players during the north London derby.

Gary Neville doesn’t see how Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal players can find “composure” in their play when their manager is “jumping around” on the sidelines.


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The Gunners have had a good start to the new Premier League season but were held to a 2-2 draw by arch-rivals Tottenham in the north London derby on Sunday.

A Son Heung-min brace cancelled out an own goal from Cristian Romero and a Bukayo Saka penalty to give Spurs a share of the spoils at the Emirates Stadium.

As usual, Arteta was animated on the touchline with the Arsenal boss attempting to get tactical messages to his players during the match.

But Neville thinks it hampered the Gunners against Tottenham as Arteta was “jumping around” too much when his team needed to be calm and composed.

Former Manchester United defender Neville said on his Sky Sports podcast: “I want to see a composure from this Arsenal team and that’s difficult because the manager’s on the sideline jumping around like you wouldn’t believe.

“I want to see passion, but I want to see composure and a coldness, and that feels like a contradiction. But I want to see it in the right moments at the right times.

“When they scored that second goal, Saka’s penalty, which was a beautiful penalty, celebrate it, give your fans something because they want to see it means something.

“But there should be two or three senior players in that group saying, “Right, come on. Switch on now, we’re ready and we’re going to see this through”.

“Your mentality kicks in of knowing when a game’s in danger.

“Declan Rice had gone off at half-time and that presented a danger, so should Jorginho have been left there almost last man on the ball for Son’s second equaliser? Maybe, maybe not.

“He should have done better himself, of course, but when you concede a goal a minute after one going in, that’s what I’m talking about, that mentality. They didn’t get set again.”

And earlier on in the day Neville thought Arsenal over celebrated their second goal in the north London derby as they got caught out by Tottenham soon after.

“I don’t want to get caught up in an Arsenal over celebrating thing and argument here but when that goal went in from Saka they all went to that corner,” Neville told Sky Sports.

“There’s a job to do, they had to concentrate and switch on and focus. They got caught straight away from kick-off.

“I don’t think it was the time to over celebrate in that corner. It was the time to get back to the halfway line and recognise that this game was far from finished.”

Neville added: “His team does carry passion and emotion. He had easy passes on Jorginho and Maddison just sacks him. It’s a sweet finish from Son.”

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