Neville says ‘jury is out’ on crucial Arsenal duo as £50m, £24m transfers are hastily questioned | OneFootball

Arsenal duo Benjamin White and Aaron Ramsdale after winning the Community Shield.

Manchester United legend Gary Neville thinks the jury is out on every one of Arsenal’s 2021 summer signings, except club captain Martin Odegaard.

The Gunners had a very positive window before the 2021/22 campaign, most notably signing Odegaard, Aaron Ramsdale, Takehiro Tomiyasu and Benjamin White.

Of course, not every signing was a roaring success with Nuno Tavares and Albert Sambi Lokonga currently surplus to requirements after two years in north London.

Many expected Arsenal to struggle to finish inside the top six in 21/22, but they exceeded expectations to very narrowly miss out on Champions League qualification, to Tottenham of all teams.

That season was still viewed as a huge step in the right direction with Ramsdale and White successfully shutting up critics who questioned why Arsenal paid a combined £74million for the young Englishmen.

Ramsdale, specifically, was written off before signing his Arsenal contract, with fans taking a very narrow-minded approach to the signing after he was relegated with Bournemouth and Sheffield United in the two seasons before joining the Gunners.

Two years on, both signings should be regarded as huge successes, even if Mikel Arteta is looking to sign David Raya to provide competition for Ramsdale.

However, former England and Manchester United right-back Gary Neville is still not convinced.

On Twitter (this sort of thing happens far too often), Neville responded to a video of himself on Sky Sports criticising Arsenal’s recruitment in August 2021.

Neville insisted he has not been proven wrong, replying: “At the time I think I was pretty accurate! I wasn’t to know ( and you wouldn’t have predicted it either ) since then you were going to go and outspend nearly everyone in Europe!”

After being told by the fan that the club’s recruitment that summer was impressive and he was “behind the curve” with his take two years ago, Neville doubled down, insisting Odegaard is the only signing who can be regarded as a success.

He replied: “A lot of the Arsenal fan base wanted MA out at the time and didn’t feel it was enough. Odegaard has been a great signing yes. Others jury out!

“You had no idea that the owners were going to go and do what they did so the behind the curve statement is revisionism.”

Neville was highly critical of White after his competitive debut for Arsenal ended in a 2-0 defeat to Brentford on the opening day of 21/22.

That evening, every Arsenal player performed very poorly and was bullied by the newly-promoted Bees, but it was White who was written off by Neville and his co-pundit Jamie Carragher.

Since then, White has only improved and was one of the best defenders in the Premier League last term as Arsenal came very close to winning the Premier League.

Finding his calling as a right-back in Arteta’s expansive system, White has come on leaps and bounds going forward and remains very composed on the ball and solid defensively.

This is clearly not enough for Neville, though, who thinks the jury remains out on the England international. Blasphemous.

And Neville has clearly never been completely sold on Ramsdale, who was recently described as “erratic” by the former England international.

“I thought Ramsdale did struggle a little bit in the last five or ten games [of last season],” Neville said on The Overlap.

“I like Raya at Brentford, so I thought the idea of signing him was a message that he’s not taking what happened last season lightly.

“Minor details caused them a problem in those last 10 games, and Ramsdale was one of those issues in the last 10 games. He was erratic, and with 10 games to go you can’t have an erratic goalkeeper.”