Graeme Souness thinks Arsenal have an “inferiority complex” when it comes to Manchester City and they’ve convinced themselves they will “never win the league”.
John Stones’ injury-time equaliser in a 2-2 draw on Sunday sparked a series of confrontations at the end of an already-controversial encounter that evoked memories of some of Arsenal’s previous clashes across the city at Old Trafford two decades ago.
The Gunners, who spent the whole of the second half down to ten men against Man City after Leandro Trossard was sent off, did everything they could to hang onto a 2-1 win at the Etihad Stadium before Stones’ late goal made it 2-2 in stoppage time.
A win would’ve seen Arsenal go top but they couldn’t hold on and instead sit fourth in the Premier League table, two points behind Man City and one behind Liverpool and Aston Villa.
Arsenal used time-wasting tactics and the ‘dark arts’ to attempt to keep Man City at bay on Sunday and Souness reckons the Gunners have “an inferiority complex” that could cost them the title this season.
“Arsenal had such an inferiority complex against City,” Souness said on the Three Up Front podcast. “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…
“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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When asked after their 5-1 win over Bolton in the League Cup on Wednesday about switching off from football in between a quick succession of matches, Arteta said: “At the moment it’s not easy, obviously the time we have at home with our families.
“The rest of the day we preparing one game thinking about the next one, the line-ups, the travel, the game states we can face and how to be prepared for that.
“It’s really busy but it’s what we want, we had an incredible week in every sense, emotionally, physically, in terms of learning as well as a coach, we had a issues we had to deal with it, and for what I had in my mind in the international break to actually what happened and the players we had available, it was very different, it’s been good.”
On whether he has any hobbies outside of football, Arteta added: “No, my biggest one is to spend time with my wife and my kids when I have time, yeah tennis is one of them I don’t have a lot of time to play my kids try to get me to play Playstation, Mario Kart these things, I’m not a big fan of that yet.”
When asked what sets apart this current group of players in the Arsenal squad from previous, Arteta continued: “Well I think it’s the time in your career, you know that you start to dream, or to pursue certain objectives, targets and when you have accomplished them you want something else, at that moment if the team, the club cannot provide that you need to do it elsewhere, it’s something natural I think.”
