After the 2-0 defeat against Manchester City in their Premier League opener, Unai Emery’s Arsenal were heavily criticised for a disappointing performance. And former England manager Sam Allardyce didn’t miss the chance to take a dig at Emery.
Arsenal’s Premier League campaign started with the most disappointing way possible.
Goals from Raheem Sterling and Bernando Silva sealed a comfortable win for the defending champions and Emery’s era started with the most disappointing way possible.
Sam Allardyce has blamed Emery for the Gunners’ poor show against City.
Sam told Talksport:
“It’s the manager’s fault. Don’t ask someone to do against Manchester City what you shouldn’t do. What do Manchester City do? Press, press, press, so why do you try and play out [from the back]? Even the Arsenal crowd cheered when they dropped one in the opposition’s half!”
The former England manager also slammed Emery’s tactics against City as ‘utter rubbish’.
“You cannot just force ‘the only way to play is this way’ in this country. We’re getting obsessed with this stupid ‘let’s play out from the back, split the centre-halfs either side of the 18-yard box and go and play from there’. It’s utter rubbish to play like that all the time.”
Meanwhile, City had a perfect start and they look all set to defend their Premier League title. Sterling, who made six starts in England’s semi-final run at the 2018 World Cup returned to the training for City on Monday. But he didn’t find any problem to get a goal under his belt.
Sterling has now scored 50 Premier League goals, with his strike against Arsenal only his third from outside the box. When Arsenal were looking to crawl back into the game, Bernando’s 64th minute goal ended all hopes for the gunners.