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Roy Keane Rips "Small Club" Arsenal To Shreds In Unholy Rant About "Dinosaur" Tactics

Roy Keane Rips "Small Club" Arsenal To Shreds In Unholy Rant About "Dinosaur" Tactics
Lee Costello
By Lee Costello Updated
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There has been so much fallout from Arsenal's 2-2 draw with Man City last weekend, and it hasn't shown any signs of slowing down.

The game had everything from goals, last minute equalisers, red cards, off the ball incidents, verbals between players, managers throwing tantrums, and extreme tactics.

Throw in the fact that Rodri picked up an ACL injury that will rule him out for the rest of the season, and there's almost too much to pick through when it comes to dissecting this match.

However, on the latest episode of The Overlap, it was Arsenal's defensive tactics that got Roy Keane's blood boiling.

Mikel Arteta's men were down to 10-men but had the lead going into the second half, and they completely parked the bus, and fought with their lives to get out of there by protecting their lead.

The approach was so defensive, that a stat emerged after the game that their forward Kai havertz didn't actually complete a successful pass in the game.

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All of this sparked Keane into a rant about Arsenal's approach, and he didn't hold back.

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If Tony Pulis, Sam Allardyce, Steve Bruce or Neil Warnock set up a team like that for the second half, they are ‘dinosaurs’,” he ranted on the Stick to Football podcast.

“When Arsenal do it, it’s called ‘brilliant’, it’s ‘concentration levels’. When they won the ball back, which they did every now and again, try and look after it and try and get up the pitch.

"There was an incident when Ben White just kicked it out of play, Declan Rice a couple of times, just kicked it up the pitch.”

“This is Arsenal we’re talking about, not a Championship team in the FA Cup, that’s hanging in there,” he added.

“They got a clean sheet last year, so they can get results. I’ve got nothing wrong with them defending and going deep, but when they got it, they didn’t do anything. Martin Odegaard is a massive loss to Arsenal.”

Arsenal legend Ian Wright was also on the show, and he defended his old club by making that argument that when you play a team as big as City away from home, and you're down to 10 men, you have to take extreme measures.

This didn't wash with the Irishman however, as Keane made the point that it wasn't the first time this season that Arsenal pulled this stunt.

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They were just booting it, like a small team with a small mentality", Keane continued.

"Go back three or four weeks, Arsenal did the same thing against Brighton with 10 or 15 minutes to go – the goalkeeper went down against Brighton at home.

"This idea that they’ve gone to the great Man City, their mindset against Brighton at home was exactly the same – that’s my argument.

"I’m saying when you’ve got it, still look after it. When you do get it, try and get four or five passes together.

"They were time-wasting against Brighton at home, so forget this idea it was Man City."

What's strange about the whole situation is that both Arsenal and City will come away from the game thinking that they got one up on their opponents.

Arsenal will be happy with a draw at the Etihad, and can prepare for the reverse fixture later in the season, while City will be delighted to steal a point at the last minute with John Stones' late equaliser.

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