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Evening Standard
Evening Standard
Sport
Alex Young

Arsenal: Roy Keane compares Mikel Arteta tactics vs Man City to 'dinosaurs' Sam Allardyce and Tony Pulis

Roy Keane says Arsenal's tactics against Manchester City reminded him of supposed football "dinosaurs" Tony Pulis and Sam Allardyce.

The Gunners on Sunday were reduced to 10 men on the stroke of half-time after Leandro Trossard was shown a second yellow card for kicking the ball away, meaning they had to defend their 2-1 lead a man down.

A rearguard display followed for 52 minutes before City equalised with almost the last kick of the game, and Keane believes a more adventurous gameplan from Mikel Arteta would have seen Arsenal see out a first win at the Etihad Stadium in almost a decade.

"If Tony Pulis, Sam Allardyce, Steve Bruce or Neil Warnock set up a team like that [Arsenal at Manchester City] for the second half, they are ‘dinosaurs’. When Arsenal do it, it’s called ‘brilliant’, it’s ‘concentration levels’," Roy Keane said on Stick to Football, brought to you by Sky Bet.

“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.

“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 Ødegaard is a massive loss to Arsenal.”

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