Gary Neville says Arsenal dressing room would have questioned Mikel Arteta decision against Man City

Mikel Arteta has been accused of playing with the ‘handbrake on’ against Manchester City (Picture: Getty)

Gary Neville has further questioned Mikel Arteta’s tactics against Manchester City, claiming the Spaniard’s starting XI for the clash will have raised eyebrows in the Arsenal dressing room before the match had even kicked off.

Having already suffered defeat to Premier League champions Liverpool, Arteta found himself under some pressure to go for the jugular at home to a City team yet to hit their stride at this early stage of the campaign.

But the Arsenal boss ignored the outside noise and once again opted for a cautious approach, with Eberechi Eze and Gabriel Martinelli left out in favour of Mikel Merino and Leandro Trossard at the Emirates.

After a confident 3-0 win over Nottingham Forest, the Gunners got off to a nightmare start as Erling Haaland opened the scoring after only nine minutes – the striker’s sixth goal in five games this season.

And while Eze and Martinelli came on and combined to rescue a point for the hosts at the death, the late strike only served as a reminder of the pace and creativity that Arteta had left on the bench until the second half.

During Sky Sports’ coverage of Sunday’s heavyweight contest, former Manchester United full-back Neville accused Arteta of ‘wasting 45 minutes’ and ‘having the handbrake on’ once more on the big stage.

With Liverpool opening up a five-point lead at the top, Arteta went on to defend his decisions following the 1-1 draw and said he was ‘surprised’ to learn of Neville’s critical remarks when facing the media.

Martinelli came off the bench to rescue a point for the Gunners (Picture: Getty) Eze was brought on at the halfway stage in north London (Picture: Getty)

But appearing on the latest episode of The Overlap, Neville doubled down on his comments and suggested Arteta’s own players would have been questioning his approach, along with the majority of Arsenal’s support in north London.

‘I don’t think 60,000 or 70,000 fans can be wrong in how they feel and I don’t think any of us who were in the studio or in that stadium can be wrong either,’ the eight-time Premier League winner said.

‘The big thing for me is the players. He names that team on Friday afternoon or, let’s say, Thursday afternoon in training and he leaves out Eze and he leaves out Martinelli and he puts in Trossard and Merino.

‘I guarantee you that dressing room, straight away, are looking at him and thinking, “Hmm, you’ve done it the same again, you’ve done it at Anfield and a little bit at Old Trafford, but certainly at Anfield.”

‘He could have been more attacking at Anfield and he wasn’t and certainly against City from the start he could have been more attacking.

‘He’s going to regret this if he doesn’t start to take the handbrake off. I’m going to repeat the comment “handbrake” because he’s got players there that need to play in these games.

‘You can’t look back at the end of the season and think, “I’ve lost at Anfield, I’ve dropped points at home against City, I’ve dropped five points now in those two matches and I could have picked a more attacking team”, and I think there’s a problem that’s starting to become a pattern for him.’

Arsenal have the squad to take more risks against their direct rivals, says Neville (Picture: Getty)

Neville – who backed Arsenal to end their wait for the Premier League trophy at the start of the season -called on Arteta to ‘dial it up’ and take greater risks against the club’s title rivals going forward.

He added: ‘I think he picks the most defensive teams he possibly can at times in big games.

‘They’re not overly defensive but I think he could be more attacking. He could dial it up.’

Liverpool now have a five-point lead over Arsenal at the top of the table (Picture: Getty)

The ex-England full-back is adamant Arsenal now have the strength in depth to ‘step up’ and stop playing with the ‘reins on’ against the likes of Liverpool and City.

‘I think when the weight of opinion, whether it be the media, the pundits, your home fans, everybody, is saying the same thing, they’re on to something,’ Neville continued.

‘There’s no one shouting around this table here today. I said Arsenal would win the league, three of us around this table have said Arsenal will win the league.

‘We’re not anti-Arsenal here, we’re actually wanting them to step up and we’re actually saying that we think this team can step up.

‘I’m still waiting for that moment where I’m thinking, “Right, they’ve stepped up, they’ve got there”, and I do think they’ve got the reins on.’

Arsenal got back to winning ways with a comfortable 2-0 victory over Port Vale in the Carabao Cup on Wednesday night, setting up an all-Premier League fourth-round tie with Brighton.

The Gunners will look to pick up where they left off when they return to top-flight action away to Newcastle this weekend.

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