Souness says Arsenal had ‘inferiority complex’ against Man City and labels draw as ‘horrible spectacle’ | OneFootball

Graeme Souness says Arsenal’s 2-2 draw with Manchester City was “no advert” for the Premier League and labelled the game a “horrible spectacle”.

John Stones’ late equaliser rescued a point for City after a second half which saw his side have 88% of the ball and 28 shots, following Arsenal attacker Leandro Trossard’s red card at the end of the first half.

But former Liverpool midfielder and manager Souness says he was left unimpressed with what he saw from the Gunners.

Speaking on William Hill’s Three Up Front podcast, he said: “I was disappointed with what I saw in Sunday’s game between Manchester City and Arsenal; it was no advert for the Premier League.

“There are ways of going about a game when you’re down to 10 men and sometimes you’d switch to two banks of four with one up front, then at least you can still get up the pitch. They didn’t do that.

“Arsenal hardly got out of their box, never mind their own half – it was a horrible spectacle. The commentators were trying to make it sound interesting and fascinating, but I thought it was dull.

“If I were playing for Arsenal in that game I wouldn’t have enjoyed it. They basically said to Manchester City, ‘you’re so much better than us that this is how we feel we have to play’. There are other ways to play when you have a player sent off. If you play like that 100 times, 95% of the time you’ll concede goals.

“Arsenal have a squad full of fabulous players and I felt they could’ve offered more. The attitude of Mikel Arteta to play less adventurous was taken to the extreme against City and they could’ve gone about it in another way.”

Arsenal came from a goal down to lead 2-1 at the break but opted for a change of approach with ten men when the game restarted, sitting deep and defending their lead.

“Arsenal had such an inferiority complex against City,” added Souness.

“They’ll be coming away from that game thinking, ‘wow, they’re so much better than us, we’ll never win the league’. Even in the first half they weren’t really matching City blow for blow. City are a fabulous team but when you go there, you have to be brave and take them on.

“Right now, teams are going to the Etihad and they’re beaten before the game has even started.

“I tipped Arsenal to win the league at the start of the season, but I’m doubting myself now. I do think they’re getting better, but they’ve shown an inferiority complex when it comes to City. They were happy to sit back and take whatever came their way at the Etihad, without getting up the pitch and trying to cause a problem. I don’t think that was a great sign.”

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