Furious Arsenal supporters have rounded on ex-England striker Michael Owen for calling out Mikel Arteta’s ‘poor’ reaction to the side’s 2-2 thriller with Manchester City at the weekend.
Sunday’s heavyweight Premier League clash proved a highly controversial and bad-tempered affair, with tensions boiling over and players at each other’s throats throughout the action at the Etihad.
Leandro Trossard’s contentious red card on the stroke of half-time forced the Gunners to drastically change their game-plan after the break and the visitors came within touching distance of a famous backs-to-the-wall victory until John Stones’ stoppage-time equaliser.
After Stones’ strike, which followed Riccardo Calafiori and Gabriel’s earlier efforts, Haaland – who scored Sunday’s opener – was seen throwing the ball at Gabriel’s head, an act Ian Wright has since described as ‘cowardly’.
The City striker was later overheard telling Arteta to ‘stay humble’ as the two teams clashed at the final whistle and the Arsenal head coach managed to keep his composure, before taking aim at the officials in his post-match interview with Sky Sports.
On Trossard’s second yellow for kicking the ball away, Arteta said: ‘It is very obvious, I don’t need to talk about it.
‘I think the red card is very clear, very obvious what people think. It is not my job to come here and judge what happened.
‘My job is to survive in one of the most difficult environments there is in football for 55 minutes and try to get things done to survive. The rest is not my job.’
The Belgian’s sending off came after City attacker Jeremy Doku went unpunished for a similar action earlier on in the first half.
Arteta added: ‘It has already happened twice in five games which is very worrying to see in the best league the Premier League.
‘It makes the situation impossible. It is very, very hard to play with 11 players, with ten it is impossible.
‘With ten you have to defend your six-yard box time and time again.’
Former Liverpool and Manchester United forward Owen enjoyed the match between last year’s champions and runners-up but took to X, formerly known as Twitter, 24 hours after the game to blast Arteta’s criticism of the officiating on show.
‘Great game yesterday but Arteta’s reaction and comments after were poor yet again,’ Owen wrote.
‘It was a certain red card for Trossard.
‘The only team hard done by was City as [referee] Michael Oliver allowed the game to restart a couple of seconds too early in the lead up to Arsenal’s equaliser.’
Before long, Arsenal fans began piling on Owen, with the tweet accumulating over 2,000 replies at the time of writing.
Fortunately for Arteta, Trossard will be available for Arsenal’s next Premier League match against Leicester as he will serve his one-match suspension in the side’s Carabao Cup tie with Bolton on Wednesday.
The north London giants sit fourth in the table ahead of their clash with Leicester, two points adrift of top-of-the-table City.
Pep Guardiola’s side face Watford in the cup this evening before returning to Premier League against Newcastle at St James’ Park this weekend.
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