Arsenal hold ‘meeting’ as Sunderland are accused of ‘endangering the wellbeing’ of Gunners stars | OneFootball

Former Sky Sports presenter Richard Keys has revealed that Arsenal are holding a meeting after Sunderland “moved the hoardings” on Saturday.

The Gunners’ winning run of ten matches in all competitions came to an end over the weekend as the Black Cats scored a late goal to grab a 2-2 draw against Mikel Arteta’s men.

Arsenal played really well against Sunderland, especially in the second half, but Regis Le Bris’ side showed the resiliance to equalise late on through a Brian Brobbey finish.

Gunners duo Bukayo Saka and Leandro Trossard had cancelled out Dan Ballard’s early Sunderland opener to make it 2-1 to Arsenal before Brobbey popped up in the fourth minute of second half injury time to secure a point.

It was two goals from open play for Arsenal at the Stadium of Light, after lots had been made about the amount of goals that the Gunners have scored from set-pieces this season.

Sunderland decided to move the advertising hoardings nearer to the pitch in a sneaky tactic designed to reduce Arsenal’s chance of using long throws to their advantage.

And Keys has revealed that Arsenal will discuss that tactic used by Sunderland after the beIN Sports presenter insisted it could have endangered some of their players.

Keys said on beIN Sports: “Sunderland did not commit an offence of any kind. What they did was moved the hoardings in with the idea being stop Arsenal using long throws.

“It’s very clear the purpose of having done that, as long as there’s a metre between the touchline and the hoarding. But in a time where we’ve recently had a fatality because of the proximity of a concrete wall, and I know it’s entirely different, I just looked at that yesterday and it looked a bit close for me.

“That might be endangering the wellbeing of those on the football pitch. I know there’s a meeting at Arsenal tomorrow to discuss.

“No rules have been broken, Sunderland are well within their rights, but I’m not sure. On the one hand it’s very smart, it’s a talking point and it did go unnoticed by Arsenal and it was a subject of conversation after they’d left the ground yesterday so we’ll wait for developments on that.”

Le Bris had no problem discussing the tactic after the match, the Sunderland boss said: “Yeah, we tried to find the details to win the game.

“They are really strong on set-pieces, we were good as well. It was absolutely obvious this threat was really important for this game and in the end it was balanced.”