Gary Neville has continued to criticise Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta for his tactical changes during their 3-1 defeat at Manchester United and believes he should've learned from Pep Guardiola.
United took the lead in the first-half through new £85.5million summer signing Antony but the Premier League leaders fought back well and equalised through Bukayo Saka. This was before Marcus Rashford put the Red Devils back in front with a deadly finish, slotting the ball beyond a hapless Aaron Ramsdale.
With his team once again searching for an equaliser at Old Trafford, Arteta elected to make an ultra-offensive triple change after 74 minutes. Emile Smith Rowe, Eddie Nketiah and Fabio Vieira were all introduced in place of Martin Odegaard, Oleksandr Zinchenko and Albert Sambi Lokonga to give Arsenal a much more attacking setup.
However, the Gunners conceded shortly after with United opening them up on the counter-attack. Christian Eriksen broke clear and decided to square the ball across to Rashford, who tapped into an empty net to seal all three points for the home side.
Neville claimed Arteta should have stuck to the way Guardiola usually does things when Manchester City are trailing. The City boss decides to not make many substitutions and sticks with his first plan and the players already on the pitch - rather than ripping up the shape of the side to chase a game.
Speaking on The Overlap Fan Debate Xtra, in partnership with Sky Bet, Neville said: "I understand making substitutions, one of the most difficult things to do, whether you’re 1-0 up, whether you’re drawing or whether you're 1-0 down.
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"I was really surprised particularly coming through the Pep Guardiola school of Pep just chases a game the same way, all the time, he'll just continue to play the same way, same methodology, why did he go the way he did, so far out with 20 minutes to go? Kieran Tierney’s on the bench, he could have kept the balance on that left.
"Erik ten Hag knew he needed to get that midfield under control, Arsenal were dominating. I just thought that Manchester United were always going to go more defensive in midfield, more compact, they were always going to break up play more with those players that were coming on like Fred, like Casemiro, which meant that the counterattack was always going to be there.
"If you're getting counter-attacked on, you're dead in the game. As soon as the substitutions were made by Arsenal, they were finished in that game because suddenly United just always had that way out."
