The former Manchester United captain didn’t hold back on the latest episode of ‘Stick To Football’.
Roy Keane has branded Arsenal ‘a small team with a small mentality’ after their performance against Manchester City on Sunday and called out two players for ‘playing like League One players’ in the feisty 2-2 draw.
In the latest episode of The Overlap’s Stick To Football, uploaded to YouTube this morning, Keane went on a very entertaining rant about “the way Arsenal set up” in the second-half after they had gone down to ten men following Leandro Trossard’s sending off just before half-time.
The Arsenal attacker received a second yellow card on the brink of the 45-minute mark when he kicked the ball away after being penalised for a challenge on Bernardo Silva.
Mikel Arteta’s side were 2-1 up at that stage of the game thanks to a Riccardo Calafiori strike, but went on to draw the match 2-2 after a last-minute effort from substitute John Stones flew past David Raya.
Keane believed the Gunners showed a ‘small mentality’ by the way they played in the latter stages of the game, booting the ball away and lacking any creativity.
“I’m not even bothered about the one up front, when you’ve got it still look after it,” the former Sunderland manager said on the Stick To Football podcast.
“You’re on about playing one up front, don’t even worry about it, but when you do get it, try and get four, five, six passes – they were just booting it like a small team with a small mentality.
“I’m digging out the players,” he continued. “You don’t need to look at the manager and say, ‘what pass do I play?’. No, you’re playing at a pretty high level.
“I’m on about getting four or five passes – when I see England international players just booting it out of play, what are you, League One or League Two?”
Keane also said: “You know the way Arsenal set up on Sunday for the second-half… if anyone else, Tony Pulis, Sam Allardyce, Steve Bruce, Neil Warnock set a team up like that for the second-half, they’re ‘dinosaurs’.
“Arsenal set up, and I mean nothing wrong with defending, I’m on about them when they did get the ball, a couple of times they were just booting it out of play. But Arsenal do it, it’s like, ‘oh, brilliant, the concentration levels…’
“I don’t mind defending but I’m saying when they did win the ball, when they won it back every now and again, try and look after it, try and get up the pitch.
“There were a couple of incidents where, I think it was [Ben] White, it just bounced and he just kicked it out of play. [Declan] Rice, a couple of times just kicked it up the pitch, this is Arsenal we’re talking about.”
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He continued: “I’m not talking about a Championship team that’s gone in the FA Cup where they’re hanging in there. Remember, they got a clean sheet there last year so they have got results there.
“Nothing wrong with defending and going deep, no problem. But when they got it, you go, ‘Can you try and do something?’ They were just booting it up the pitch.”
Arsenal legend Ian Wright was quick to defend his former club in light of Keane’s criticism.
“They were without Martin Odegaard to pass it out to somebody to get the foul, waste time or go down,” said Wright. “I’m not going to criticise them, especially at Man City, with 10 men, trying to win a game.
“I realise that the opponents, after winning four Premier Leagues in a row, six in seven, aren’t going to install the red carpet in every single game (for us) to make incredible (football) in our best dresses, perform like we want. I’ve never thought that. This is the challenge.
“People misunderstand me or don’t believe me when I say the opponents can play how they want to,” he added. “It (is up) to us to handle them and break them in the way we have to do.
“With Mikel, after a time we texted each other and the relationship doesn’t change. They decided to play in that way and it is more than perfect. They were brilliant. It’s about us, how we can break them, and we did it really well.
“I said to Mikel they did amazingly, it’s not a problem. They know their players and do exactly what they have to do.”
