Mikel Arteta may have channelled a tactic used by Sir Alex Ferguson when shielding his Arsenal players from blame after their Manchester City draw, according to Jamie Carragher and Gary Neville. The Spaniard's men saw their valiant efforts squashed at the Etihad during their last league outing. After surviving for the entirety of the second half with 10 men and a slender 2-1 lead, John Stones thundered in a leveller in the eighth minute of added time .
Leandro Trossard was the player who saw red after barging into City's Bernardo Silva and clattering away the ball only to be given his marching orders by Michael Oliver, which was later revealed to have been for delaying the restart - the exact same fate the Declan Rice suffered against Brighton earlier in the term . When questioned about the incident, Arteta surprised many by stating he believed Trossard and Rice were 'passing' the ball - a statement that Sky Sports pundits Gary Neville and Jamie Carragher couldn't quite believe, and the former likened to a technique once used by his old boss Ferguson. "I understand managers coming out and defending the players," Carragher started, speaking on The Overlap US.
"It's always been seen as a great trait in a manager – he always defends his team and players. "But, I don’t understand when a manager comes out and says something like Mikel Arteta has done, where everybody else can see what it is." Arteta was quick to correct a journalist who stated that both Trossard and Rice saw r.
