Jamie Carragher has suggested Mikel Arteta is turning into the next Jose Mourinho rather than the new Pep Guardiola.
Arsenal were held to a 2-2 draw by Liverpool on Super Sunday after dominating the first half.
The Gunners, derailed by injuries to Gabriel and Jurrien Timber, were pegged back after the break, with the game following a similar pattern to their draws with Brighton and Manchester City followed by the recent defeat to Bournemouth.
“I’m starting to worry about Arsenal’s mentality now,” concluded Sky Sports’ Roy Keane.
“When they get themselves in front, they sit back, instead of going after the third goal. Liverpool were there for the taking if they wanted it. I just worry about their belief, do they have the belief that they can really challenge Manchester City?”
In mitigation, all of Arsenal’s previous setbacks this season have occurred when reduced to 10 players and they played for a large chunk of the second half against Liverpool – who entered the weekend’s fixtures top of the table – with a makeshift back four of Thomas Partey, Ben White, Jakub Kiwior and Myles Lewis-Skelly.
“The interesting thing about watching Arsenal, and I have been thinking about this for a long time, because Mikel Arteta worked with Pep Guardiola we have been thinking that he is a Pep Guardiola disciple,” Carragher said.
“But if you think about the two most successful managers in the last 15 years then you have Pep Guardiola over here and Jose Mourinho over here.
“Mikel Arteta is slowing morphing into a Jose Mourinho type of manager. Nobody really thought that was going to happen. Today, they retreated in the second half.”
Has Arteta calculated only his defence can win the title?
Despite making a difficult start to the season, with any momentum curtailed by a spate of injuries and three red cards in nine games, Arsenal remain five points off the summit.
And Carragher believes that Arteta’s ‘Mourinhoesque’ tactics may be deliberate design.
“This is not a criticism, this is an observation of where Arsenal are at as a team. Maybe it is because Arteta has looked at his attacking players and thought ‘we’re not as good as Manchester City, we have to win the league by being the best team defensively.’ And that’s what they were last season and possibly still are.
“But this idea that Arsenal play great football and he is a Pep Guardiola man, he is not. Just look at the players going down today, the secrecy before the game about who was fit and who wasn’t. It’s all out of the Jose Mourinho playbook.”
Keane: I worry for Arsenal medical staff! They’re going down, rolling around…
Keane highlighted another hallmark of the Mourinho playbook by singling out Arsenal’s players for “rolling around” during games, but said it added to their own sense of anxiety rather than trying to kill the game off at 2-1 up.
Aiming a tongue-in-cheek jibe at Arteta’s side, he said: “I really worry for the Arsenal medical team. Every time an Arsenal player’s tackled, they’re going down, they’re rolling around. They’re time-wasting.
“They’re trying to kill the game, I get it, but you’re the home team – use the initiative, you’re 2-1 up, the fans are behind you. The fans were trying their best to get them over the line.”