Martin Keown has hit out at Roberto De Zerbi's touchline antics during Brighton's 3-0 win over Arsenal before claiming that Mikel Arteta would have received far greater scrutiny had he celebrated in the same manner.
The Seagulls kept their European dream alive in style at the Emirates on Sunday with a statement victory that also ended the hosts' title hopes. Julio Encisco broke the deadlock early in the second half before Deniz Undav doubled Brighton's lead late in the match. Pervis Estupinan grabbed a third goal in the dying embers of additional time.
De Zerbi has won plenty of plaudits since succeeding Graham Potter at the Amex back in September. The Italian has quickly become renowned for his passion on the sidelines and he did his best Jose Mourinho impression on Sunday as Brighton surged to victory.
But while Keown admits he enjoys the passion that De Zerbi shows, he feels as though the Seagulls boss gets away with murder compared to Arteta, who has come under fire this term for his own touchline behaviour.
"I honestly feel if Arteta did that down the side of the pitch we'd never hear the end of it," Keown told talkSPORT on Monday morning. "But it's okay for De Zerbi to do it? I like that kind of emotion.
"I would say, because it's Brighton who are inoffensive, because it's everyone's second-favourite team, we turn a blind eye to it. But if that's the Arsenal manager doing that all of a sudden, it's a problem."
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Keown's talkSPORT colleague Simon Jordan hit back, though. He said: "If you went to Manchester City, and beat City at the Etihad and your manager went down sliding on his knees nobody would say anything. If you went to Southampton and did it, they would say, 'what are you on about?'"
Keown then finished up the discussion by comparing De Zerbi's celebrations to that of a player. He retorted: "As a goalscorer, you take your shirt off, you get a yellow card. Do you not think that if the manager comes racing onto the pitch, he wasn't just doing it on the sideline, he did it on the pitch, is that not an automatic yellow card?"
Arteta made no comment on De Zerbi's touchline celebration after the match as he tried to come to terms with Arsenal's late collapse in the title race.
The crestfallen Spaniard said: "I hate the feeling of letting people down when they're really expecting something. That's the biggest regret I have today."
He went on to slam his team's second-half display, adding: "A week ago, I was standing here feeling proud [after the win over Newcastle] and today we have to apologise for the performance in the second half. It was not acceptable.
"Mathematically, it's still possible, but today it's impossible to think about it. We need to digest the result and the performance in the second half, understand why and have a different reaction."
