Arsenal news: Mesut Ozil and Henrikh Mkhitaryan singled out in damning Man City criticism

That is according to beIN SPORTS pundit Andy Gray.

Arsenal were well beaten by Man City, handing Unai Emery his first loss as manager.

Ozil and Mkhitaryan were tasked with providing attacking support to Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang but both failed to make an impact.

Emery refused to criticise his players but made clear a vast improvement was needed.

But Gray reckons Arsenal could struggle badly on the evidence of their performance and voiced his displeasure with Ozil and Mkhitaryan.

He said on beIN SPORTS: “If ever there was a player that you thought with a new coach in, you would see a bit of life in him, a spark and a difference it was Mesut Ozil. And I didn’t.

“Mkhitaryan might as well have been sitting here.

“I didn’t see a change in their mentality and attitude and I thought I would.

“You can play really badly, that’s fine but what was your mentality and attitude like.

“The attitude looked exactly the same as it was when Arsene [Wenger] was getting hammered.

“If Arsene had been in charge, the fans would have booed them off the pitch.

“Unai Emery needs a bit of time but on that performance, they are way off.”

Earlier today, former England manager Sam Allardyce blasted Emery’s tactical approach against City.

“It is the manager’s fault,” Allardyce told talkSPORT.

“Don’t ask somebody to do against Man City what you shouldn’t do. You shouldn’t play out like that against Manchester City.

“What do Manchester City do? They press, press, press so why do you try and play out when they press, press, press?

“Even the Arsenal crowd cheered when he [Cech] dropped one in the opposition’s half.

“We are getting obsessed with this stupid ‘let’s play out from the back, split the centre halves either side of the 18-yard box and go and play from there’… it’s utter rubbish to play like that all of the time. When you’re the best at it [like City] then you can do it.”


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