MANCHESTER UNITED legend Gary Neville claims he knew that Arsenal would get “battered” by Manchester City before the game had even kicked off.
The Gunners suffered a 4-1 defeat to Pep Guardiola’s side on Wednesday.
They now sit just two points clear of second-placed City, who have two games in-hand, after failing to win each of their last four games.
Arsenal squandered two-goal leads against both Liverpool and West Ham before coming from behind to draw 3-3 with Southampton last week.
And the club’s recent habit of conceding goals was the exact reason behind Neville’s bold prediction ahead of Wednesday’s huge match against City.
Speaking on The Overlap, the former Man Utd defender said: “I think coming to Manchester City in a game like this, I think it warranted potentially looking at the game differently.
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“If you’re conceding goals against Southampton, Bournemouth, and West Ham, you’re definitely going to concede goals against Manchester City.
“We have a group don’t we [with Jamie Carragher], a group chat and honestly I saw them in the tunnel and I said: ‘Arsenal are going to have to do very well here not to concede four.
“Literally in the tunnel, you just thought, they’re going to get absolutely battered, I didn’t think that really a week ago or a few days ago, I thought it would be tight.”
Following the match, Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta admitted that Man City were the better team.
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He said: “The analysis is clear: the better team won the game. They were probably at their best, especially in the first half, and we were nowhere near our level.
“When that happens, the gap becomes too big and in the first 30 minutes we didn’t do all the basic things that you have to do against an exceptional team, in terms of competing, winning duels and understanding what the game requires.
“We got punished and we could have been punished even more.”
Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
