Sky Sports’ Soccer Saturday host Jeff Stelling aimed a joke at former Manchester United defender and pundit Gary Neville on Saturday for his recent remarks on Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta. It comes as the Spaniard has come in for praise for the job he has done this season.
After a summer of change, Arteta has managed to guide his side to fourth, three points and one game in hand clear of north London rivals Tottenham in fifth. It puts the Gunners in pole position to qualify for the Champions League after a season without Europe at all.
The results and performances have meant that the manager has come in for a lot of praise recently, winning Manager of the Month for the second time this season for his impressive March schedule. However, with Manchester United, Chelsea, West Ham and Tottenham all left to play, it will be a tough sprint to the finish.
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His achievements were centre of focus for Neville on the Overlap live, where he claimed Arteta should leave as it’s the best he could do with the side. He said: “I really like Mikel Arteta, I think he’s a brilliant coach. I think the team is fantastic in terms of the young players they’ve got.
“Arteta's a good operator. My concern is if Arsenal finish fourth this season – which to be fair, I think is 50/50, I still think there’s a long way to go in that race – but if they finish fourth, that’s in some ways as good as it gets.
“You’ve got Pep [Guardiola], [Jurgen] Klopp, Man United, Chelsea, where can Arsenal go? They’re not going to compete. Mikel Arteta is a brilliant coach, I love that we’re seeing a team that he’s getting the maximum out of.
"I can see exactly how he wants to play, we all can. But he gets to fourth [and] if he was really hard about it, he’d probably say ‘right, that’s the best I can do there, I’m going now and getting my next job’."
It was a remark that shocked a few, due to the long-term view laid out by Arteta and his staff for the future of the club and his players. It was something that became a topic of conversation in the Soccer Saturday studio, with former Crystal Palace striker Clinton Morrison telling Stelling to pick up the phone and telling Neville to sort it out.
The host did so in a joking manner and said: “Hello Gary? Yeah. Where could he go? Salford?! No! No, no, no. He wants a job that’s going to last longer than six months. Sorry Gaz! The way they [Salford] killed Hartlepool today, it was just the wrong time to do it.”
The joke was aimed at Neville and his group that own Salford City Football Club in League Two, who have had a previous reputation for dismissing managers on a regular basis. While it may have been a dig, it was done so in good humour, with the panel nonetheless mainly disagreeing with Neville’s point on Arteta leaving the club.
