Neville on Gunners late equaliser against City | Liverpool aren't even at their best, and they’re already five points clear!

0:00Good evening one and all, it is the Gary Neville podcast as the sun goes down over the Emirates Stadium at the end of an afternoon which ended all square here. Arsenal won Manchester City, won Arsenal with a very late equaliser after a particularly intriguing second half, Gary, where Manchester City were clicking to a one goal lead. How have you read it all?

0:20Gary Neville:Yeah, not a game I was expecting. I mean, I was expecting it to be tough in the sense that both teams know each other. and I think Arsenal, we know how they play in respect to their defensive strength and don't give a lot of chances away. So I thought that it might be hard to create moments, but how it played out, obviously City getting the early goal and then Pep Guardiola resorting to a way of playing that I've never seen before, but I really liked it. It wasn't a criticism when I was talking during the game. I really enjoyed the fact that he went to 5-4-1. He decided that he was just going to manage the game without the ball, which is great.

0:57Gary Neville:and play on the counter-attack. Play on the counter-attack with only one forward on the pitch in the end. They had four midfield players and five defenders and they looked so comfortable. You know, Arsenal, the fans remained in the stadium, but there was just nothing happening at all. And then obviously that late moment, that late goal, which obviously has meant that the sort of spoils are shared. But yeah, an interesting day. Not necessarily a good day for either team in demonstrating that they've got the credentials to be better than Liverpool, but there's a long way to go. Should we be happy that Pep Guardiola has surprised us again?

1:34You know, he has so many dimensions and that's one that perhaps hadn't occurred to anyone, that he would play such a big chunk of such a big game like that.

1:42Gary Neville:I think the reason he's done that today, and obviously we'll see his post-match interviews, will be that he is recognising that Arsenal, and it's a bit, they're a one-trick pony. set pieces just to such a large percentage of their chances and goals that you end up in a situation where you've just got to have big players in the box and a goalkeeper who comes and punches. And if you don't, you're going to get beat up on corners and set pieces and free kicks. So I think it was a response to that and knowing what Mikel Arteta would do, that they would obviously press hard, they would get more corners, they would get more play.

2:16Gary Neville:And he's got nine giants on the pitch just to be able to head it. And they did it absolutely perfectly. They defended, it was almost at one point I was saying, Every time a long throwing came in and every time a corner came in, it was almost as if they were saying, more, more, we'll deal with that. There's no problems whatsoever. But it was unusual because, you know, I always remember going back to Pep Guardiola's first season in England and it wasn't a successful season, if you remember. They didn't win the league in that first season. And he said that the reason that they would concede, I remember a couple of games I watched and let's say they were winning 2-1 and then they conceded late on.

2:51Gary Neville:He said it wasn't because they didn't have the physicality. it was because they didn't keep the ball well enough. And then beyond that, for the last six, seven, eight years, we've just seen them dominate possession. Less so maybe in the last 12 to 18 months, two years. But when they were at the absolute best, they'd be 1-0 up, but they'd have 70, 80 % of the ball and the other team would be chasing shadows and you'd be able to get nowhere. This is a completely different Manchester City. It's a complete turnaround. It's a 180. And to see him do that in the final parts of the game, the idea of adapting.

3:25Gary Neville:There's a lot of questions asked of managers about do they adapt and are they agile enough if things change in games. Pep Guardiola never really changed his way of playing. It was almost as if to say everyone has to adapt to what I'm doing and everybody copied him for years and years playing out from the back and all of his stuff. But he's moved on beyond that now and certainly a lot more physical, a lot more direct, less football than there used to be. I know he loves football, so he's going to maybe because of the players he's got, but he's recruited those players. You know, he's recruited Nico Gonzalez and Kusanov and players like that and players that, you know, are more physical, Rinders.

4:01Gary Neville:They haven't got the technical ability of David Silva and Kevin De Bruyne and all those players we've seen in the last few years. So, yeah, don't get me wrong, there's still some really good players out there for City but it's a different Manchester City and I enjoy it. I mean, I thought that goal that Harlan scored was absolutely wonderful because I referred to it actually in the game. There was a goal out here that Rooney and Ronaldo scored on a counter-attack. I think it was a Champions League semi-final maybe 15 years ago, maybe 17 years ago actually. Was it that long ago? Yeah, it was 17 years ago, 18 years ago.

4:35Gary Neville:It's scary. And I was injured that season. It was 2007-8, I think, or maybe 8-9. And honestly, it was like, wow, what have I just seen? And that was a moment out there. I just love counter-attack goals. I love Haaland. I think he's a brilliant centre-forward. I think he's stepped up enormously in this last couple of weeks in terms of his leadership and his general performance. At moments in his last three years, four years, we've seen him not touch the ball and not look interested at times in the game, but he's really engaged. He's engaged in his own box heading it away, and he's engaged in up the top fighting with Gabriel and Saliba, giving them a real hard time.

5:12Gary Neville:I really enjoyed watching Manchester City in that last 20, 25 minutes because it was unusual and I never thought I'd see it whilst Pep Guardiola was here and they should have seen it out. There was a real concentration and focus and they just had one little loose moment and we'll cover that maybe. Yeah, well, and we'll come to Arsenal as well, of course, and the conversations you've had around them and some of the things you've said, but I wonder how fundamental to the way City play today was their new goalkeeper and his dealing with those corners I think he had one skewed punch, didn't he? Just one.

5:50But broadly speaking, he was the boss.

5:52Gary Neville:Yeah, it's tough. I mean, he had a difficult one in the second half where he didn't just quite get enough on it. There was people around him, players, his own defenders around him that swept it up for him. But he's dominant. I always think every goalkeeper is going to make a mistake, but make a mistake doing the right things. So if you come out and punch and you don't quite get it right, the goal goes, and I've got no problem with that because you came out and punched and you were brave and you tried to do the right thing. I've got a problem when goalkeepers hide on the line and they're like this you see the sort of neck sort of disappear into their shoulders and you see them their arms sort of shrink and you think to yourself hang on a minute stand up jump punch and you'll be 6 foot 4, 6 foot 5, 6 foot 8 whatever it is when you jump and you punch but some goalkeepers don't fancy it and you can tell they don't fancy it and they don't fancy it in their facial expressions their body language but you look at Donnarumma and he's an absolute he's an animal you know he's like there he's just big and when he comes for it it makes oncoming attackers think about it as well because you're going to get a right bash in the head if he comes and hits you so for me I just think he's a fantastic goalkeeper he's the type of goalkeeper I've always enjoyed I like Alisson at Liverpool I like Donnarumma I mean I like Raya but I wouldn't pick Raya over Donnarumma or Alisson just because I love a massive goalkeeper a Schmeichel a van der Sar it makes a massive difference when your goalkeeper's towering above everybody else but also that they're very good at what they do and he's very good at what he does he makes saves he's dominating in his box he's positive in his actions and yeah he will make some mistakes along the way and that's fine but I think that he does the right things and he had a big impact in this first week at City and you were quite animated when the equaliser did go in about well you explained to me something City did that they hadn't been doing for the previous 45 minutes?

7:40Gary Neville:Look, I've been watching Jurgen Klopp's Liverpool and Pep Guardiola's Manchester City and they absolutely astonish me how high they play in their lines over this last seven or eight years. And even when there's time on the ball in midfield, there was a golden rule going back to Tony Adams at Arsenal and Steve Bruce and Gary Pallister and even Rio Ferdinand and Manny Vidic. You know, these great back fours and back fives. If there's a player got time on the ball in midfield and gets his head up, defenders have to drop. That's just been completely turned on its head by what we've seen with these back fours at Liverpool and City over this last few years and even this Arsenal one now where they just push up the pitch.

8:17Gary Neville:But City in the second half was so deep they would what I would call, I mean it's now called a low block but Sir Alex Ferguson used to say to us quite a lot, don't be afraid to play five, ten yards outside your own box and then it leaves your goalkeeper that ten yards any ball over the top it's going to run through to the goalkeeper. Arsenal had been there at that five yards outside their own box. You see where the sort of little arc is. What's it called? I don't even know what it's called anymore. The D. The D. The D outside the 18-yard box. Yeah, that's where we'd say. Just there. In a line there.

8:47Gary Neville:Anything over the top is going to go out for a corner or through to your goalkeeper. And City were there for the whole of that second half, it felt like, or the majority of it. And then with literally 92, 93 minutes on the clock, Eze gets the ball in his own half. And you just think, just drop. It's a great run from Martinelli. It's the best run in football from a wide player. The very best run in football. Mane and Salah perfected it for years. The great wide players, I and Robin, all the ones I played against. That little run inside the full-back and inside the centre-back, sort of that in-between run, is a brilliant run.

9:21Gary Neville:It's very difficult to know when to pass over from a full-back to a centre-back, whether to hold your line, whether to go back. And he made it brilliantly. But I just don't know why a Stones or a Diaz in the middle, when Eze's got on the ball and getting on the half turn, drop, all of us just drop together, five, six yards, and they literally just head that clear. Or if it goes further over their heads, it goes through to the goalkeeper. So it's a real big mistake. And then the other thing that Ake didn't do was block the run. When someone's supposed to make their run, they block him, make sure you sort of disrupt his movement and his stride.

9:55Gary Neville:So there was a... Look, I've been there and I've made those mistakes, so I'm sat here, but I'm sat here from a point of frustration as if I had made that mistake and I was the left back and the left centre back. They'll be absolutely kicking themselves tonight. They'll be going back on that bus or plane or train, however they're getting back to Manchester. And I wouldn't be able to sleep tonight thinking about the fact that we were so close in winning. They're bloody hard to win these big matches and they were so good in the second half defensively, City. But those two lads will just think, oh no.

10:28Gary Neville:And it'll just make their stomachs sink. and that's how I used to feel at moments when I made those types of errors in my career but it's a big error in a game from an elite team. It is. There's no getting away from it. You've got Eze on the ball, you've got your runner going in, just drop off Guardiola and Ake and they deal with it but they didn't do and it is what it is. It can happen with good play. Eze's great pass, Martinelli's run, the timing, the finish was fantastic as well so well done to them but City will definitely be deflated in that dressing room and Pep Guardiola will be proud of how his players played.

11:02Gary Neville:You see the City fans at the end clapping the players because they recognise they really dug in and played in a different way than they usually do. It was a real fighting performance. It was a battle. But they'll just be a little bit sick. From Arsenal's perspective, in the context of the conversation around them at the moment and their readiness or otherwise to perhaps go for it, I might say to you, listen, at halftime, he did throw on Eze. He did throw on Saka. In the end, he threw on Martinelli. He did go for it. And what's more, they got their equaliser. What's your problem? My problem is that we're starting a criticism of Arsenal from a very high bar.

11:41Gary Neville:We're talking about the last step going from second to first, and it's a huge step. So we're not talking about this being a really bad team, a bad Arsenal team, a bad Arsenal coach. We're talking about a really good coach who's done a fantastic job with a great group of players who have put on a great show here now for four or five years and been second in the league three times on the run. It's a great achievement. Let's be clear. I'm not patronising them in any way, shape or form, but you've got to win a title or else you will not be remembered. That's it, number one. So when I come here today, the narrative for me is, are City the real thing or are they what we really think of them, that they're not quite ready?

12:22Gary Neville:this genius manager has just sort of not run out of ideas but this is just not happening they're just a bit short that was my narrative with City my narrative with Arsenal was thinking is he going to take the risk is he going to send his players the message that I am going for it that I believe in you and the team sheet comes through and I see that Trossard who's a very good player and Mourinho are on it I thought the same at Anfield and I can't help thinking and I said this probably now for a couple of weeks I'm not going to look at what a manager says I'm going to look at what he does his actions and his actions at half time were of a manager who I think got it wrong because if you're making two substitutions at half time it's not gone to plan and you know that the players that you started with are not going to be able to win you the game in all circumstances which is when they go a goal down so you've given away 45 minutes in a big match and I think that and again I'm talking from my experiences as a player not from a manager Mikel Arteta is head and shoulders above me but I played in a dressing room who knew how to take risks under a manager who knew how to take risks and quite simply the job of a football manager at the absolute top level at Arsenal, Liverpool, Manchester United Manchester City is get the most talented players out on the pitch without compromise to defence so that means your best players have to be able to defend it's not the other way around get your most sort of what will be safest players out on the pitch and try and pinch a game that's not what you do at a top club winning a league is going to need that edge and that spark and goals being scored and you're going to need to create chances and chance after chance and Arsenal are not creating enough chances in these types of games they're scoring lots of goals from set pieces Six out of their nine goals before this game have come from set pieces.

14:18Gary Neville:One of them was a penalty. Now, that's great that they're good at set pieces, but it's not good enough. They've got Saka, Martinelli, Jokerez, Havertz, Eze, Trossard, Waniere, Madweke. How much talent? Odegaard. How much talent is there there? That is a collection of brilliant football players. Declan Rice, who should be able to create loads of chances. So what's holding them back? What's holding them back? What's stopping them becoming a thrill when they attack? And the fact of the matter is, when we saw that team sheet today, we thought, I hope the same thing doesn't happen again. And we're watching Arsenal in that first half, and it was pretty basic, the football.

15:05Gary Neville:It was quite comfortable for City. Because of Donnarumma and the other defenders that City had on the pitch, they weren't quite as dangerous from set pieces as they can be because Pep Guardiola had got that one worked out and you're left feeling, how many times is this going to happen? You can't wait to win a league. Now, I've predicted Arsenal will win the league. I think Roy Keane predicted Arsenal will win the league. I think Micah Richards predicted Arsenal would win the league. I think the Arsenal fans in this stadium have probably predicted they're going to win the league. But does the manager and the players really believe, number one that they can win the league?

15:41Gary Neville:Do they really believe it? Are they really thinking it every single minute of every day? Because that's what it is and what it takes and what it needs. And then the second bit is do they know how to win a league? Does the manager know how to win a league? Does he know how to get the players over the line throughout the season? Do the players know how many of those players have won a league title? Do they know how to get over the line? And that's the thing for me. I was very lucky when I went into the team at Manchester United that they'd broken that duck and there were senior players who knew how to get over the line and there was a manager who'd won up in Scotland titles and he'd won obviously down in.

16:17Gary Neville:So I was very fortunate to be in a position to be surrounded by a knowledge and experience and expertise on winning trophies. But they haven't got that in this team. And I just wonder, you can't look back and wish you could have done more. And he must be looking back tonight, Mikel Arteta, at this game and reviewing it and think, well, should I have started with Eze off the front? Should I have started with Martinelli on the left? I understand why Saka didn't start. We all get that. But it could have been more attacking than it was. And it wasn't. And again, like at Anfield after the Schobber's live free kick, the attacking substitutions only happen when they're one down.

16:55Gary Neville:And that's not right. Make your Arsenal football club, make your attacking plays at 0-0 at the start of the game. Because that's when you basically have the best chance of going and giving the impact. but also it sends your message to your players that I believe in you attacking players. You're going to go out there and win me this game. And that's the bit that I have got in doubt about Arsenal. And it isn't going to go away until someone proves me wrong. But I've got a lot of love for them and I like them. And they're a good side and I like watching them play. But they've got to take the handbrake off.

17:26Do you buy at all the notion, just looking at the team sheet, as you've just referred to, that substitutes aren't substitutes, they're finishers. and that it's a perfectly valid way of going about things to deploy your best attackers later in the game.

17:44Gary Neville:Well, let's look at the best game that I ever played in my life, the Champions League final. We started with finishers and we ended with more finishers. We started the game with Giggs and Blomquist and Beckham and York and Cole and then we put on Solskjaer and Sheringham. So it's not a case of either or. You start the game with great players. So you could have started today with Eze off the front. It's a phenomenal subs list, isn't it? What a bench. Yeah, you could have started today with Eze off the front and you could have started with Martinelli on the left and that would have probably been the most attacking that you would have expected Arsenal to go.

18:19Gary Neville:So Madweki on the right, Jokerez, Martinelli and Eze. A front four, Declan Rice in behind with Zubamendi and you'd have thought, right, OK, that could really cause City some problems. You know, not Nunes, Kusunov at right back, O 'Reilly at left back, you know, Gvardi Olin, Diaz, they could really get some issues with that four, but he doesn't, he starts with Mourinho and Trossard, who, you know, Trossard's just more predictable, he's a good player, really solid player and then you've got obviously Mourinho who's more of a sort of, what I would call a he's more of a he's technically okay and he runs forward, he can be a bit of a threat on crosses but he's not somebody who's neat and creative and sort of going to invent in that role, so you start with that four I've said, and then what you might do is, you might think, okay it's not working for us So what I'm going to do, I'm going to put Mourinho on and I'm going to get him running really high into the box alongside Jokeres and I'm going to play, you know, I'm going to take Zubimendi off and I'm going to play Rice holding in midfield.

19:13Gary Neville:I'm going to put someone deeper, Eze a bit deeper with him. You can always go more attacking, if you know what I mean. And I'm not talking about being reckless here and throwing the kitchen sink at it and going gung-ho. I'm talking about just trusting in your players, your best players to defend for you as well. I mean, you've got an unbelievable back four. You've got Calafiore, Timber. you've got four centre-backs already you've already got four centre-backs a great goalkeeper and you've got Zubimendi and Rice so you've got seven on the pitch already that are going to basically defend for you so you don't need the other four of course the other four need to defend in the big game but the other four need to win you the game so you can afford to have five players that are really attacking I mean City had on that pitch today Doku, Reinders, Haaland, Bernardo Silva and Foden and they defended for the lives for 60 minutes that five.

20:04Gary Neville:Now they have five attacking players. So actually City had more attacking players on the pitch than Arsenal when it comes to the sort of starting 11. They had more attacking players on the pitch. That's not right. That's not right. But Pep Guardiola trusted his attacking players to go out and do a defensive job for him and they did. So yeah, it's a question that's not going to go away from Mikel Arteta. He might not like it. He might think we all don't know what we're talking about. But I think I've seen this for three, four years and I think I've seen this for the last 25, 30 years in terms of what teams win the league and there's the odd one that breaks the mould that's a little bit more pragmatic that plays on the counter the odd one but generally the teams that go and win the league really have a sparkle up front and they have many options off the bench and they've got basically players and they've got an approach that is exciting and risk-taking and I'm not sure I'm seeing that and I got them for the title by the way so this is coming from someone who thinks that this team can win the title but do they?

21:03Gary Neville:Do they? And do they know how to? Okay, so Arsenal and City have dropped points and Liverpool still haven't dropped any points. A couple of terrific goals yesterday, weren't they, Ravenberg and Ekotike? Is this ominous? Ominous in the fact that I think at times they're hanging on by the skin of their teeth, not necessarily yesterday, but that they've scored goals late on and ominous at the fact that they don't think they're at the best. Ominous at the fact that I don't think they've even settled on their best team yet and they've not got the best team out on the pitch and the new players, Verts, Izak, you've got 250 million quids with a quarter of a billion pounds worth of players there that haven't even got to a point whereby they're either playing together or at the best or anything like in their rhythm and the talent and potential that we know they can produce.

21:47Gary Neville:So for me, they've got a belief about them. They've got a manager who will, I think, shift up a gear at whatever point in the game they need to do to go and score goals and win. They take risks. They call it on with the other team. They give you encouragement to the point whereby they draw you forward and then they'll go and hit you. And they're a really, really good side. So at this moment, are they five points clear at the end of today? They will be won. And Arsenal will be second, obviously, with 10 points. So, look, they'll be really... Tottenham 10 points. And Arsenal got 10 points. Arsenal 10 points as well, yeah.

22:23Gary Neville:Yeah, so the five points clear, obviously, it's very early. it's far too early to call Liverpool title favourites, sorry, title winners. But they're massive favourites because of their experience, because of their ability to score goals, because of their belief that they want to go and win every game and they can go punch for punch with any opponent.

22:48Gary Neville:And yeah, I mean, they played some difficult games as well, by the way, in this first period. They got United in a couple of weeks as well, I think. That's to look forward to. on which subject you had one of those kind of utopian glorious days as a football fan. I don't get many. You don't get many. Where you and your mate went and saw Salford win and then you jumped on whatever you jumped on and got to Old Trafford very quickly and saw Manchester United win. Yeah. Well done, Salford. But let's talk about Manchester United. Yeah, I got there five minutes after the start of the game. So I actually got in the stadium, we all did, just after Sanchez had been sent off.

23:28Gary Neville:But you still have to go and, you know, still, I actually thought that put a bit of pressure on United, funnily enough, that it was almost like a sort of no-win game. If they won, people said, oh, Chelsea down to 10 men. But when Casemiro got sent off just before half-time, I thought, oh no, this is going to be a painful second half. And it was actually towards the end. But I actually thought United deserved to win. it was a good a good good good weekend for Ruben Amarin because I think he needed that little bit of just respite and that relief of just that breather really it would have really come on top yesterday particularly with Chelsea going down to 10 men I thought was Palmer injured because I was obviously I wasn't watching the commentary he was injured when he came off so fair enough but it seemed like a lot of strange substitutions moment of madness from Casemiro I get the fact it was soft but still an experienced player who's got another one the other side of him.

24:19Gary Neville:He's already been booked. So that was madness from him. It didn't help Ruben Amorim, just manage the second half and have a comfortable sort of 45 minutes. But it was a good win. It was a strange game. Very odd game, I felt. Just a lot of things happened that made it odd. The weather was obviously incredible as well, which obviously meant that it was a little more difficult for the players. But it's a good week. Two big games now for United because we're still early enough in the season whereby you beat Chelsea. if you can win at Brentford and then beat Sunderland at home which are two winnable games and look let's be clear you could be sat here in two weeks with United and how it has been for ten years in a completely different mindset but you could be sat here in a couple of weeks with United well up the table with a bit of confidence back in the group and so yeah I'm hopeful of that because I don't think that as a Manchester United fan you want stability this season you want the manager to sort of be able to grow and obviously he's very young, he's under pressure that's not going to go away yet one win isn't going to change that but it was very helpful yesterday, very helpful And from a Chelsea perspective just an unfortunate day that they lost their goalkeeper early and the rain came down and it just wasn't going to happen Yeah, I was actually most disappointed with Chelsea in that second half I just didn't think they played very well in the second half I thought that if I'd have been a Chelsea player at half time going in at 10 v 10 and obviously 2-0 down so they've got a bit of a sort of, you know, they've got a goal of this advantage.

25:51Gary Neville:I'm thinking they're really going to come out and go for it and play. And they didn't. Actually, I thought about them when I was watching Chelsea yesterday in that second half. They were still playing their patterns. And I get it. But it's 10 v 10. It's chucking it down. The game's not about, I don't think the game is about patterns and shape at that point. I think it's about just making it mad. You know, if you're 2-0 down, it's 10 v 10, and you know that you score one goal, and all of a sudden the crowd, the United players, are going to get a little bit nervy and a bit anxious, which is what happened eventually near the end.

26:27Gary Neville:I'd have just gone for it all out and made it the craziest game, but it was almost like they were still passing it around the back and wasting a lot of time and recycling it, and I just felt, quite simply, they didn't have enough good forwards on the pitch. I have to say, they looked well short for me still up front. But for all the money they've spent, and I know they've got a good player, De Lapp and João Pedro, who's a good player, but they're still not at that level where you think that they're nothing like Haaland or Isaac or even Eketike for that matter. So, yeah, I was disappointed in Chelsea, I felt, in the second half more than the first.