Trevor Sinclair has blamed Mikel Arteta after some Arsenal players lost their cool in their 3-0 loss at Tottenham last night.
The Gunners have had a terrible disciplinary record since the Spaniard became their manager and it has been bad in this campaign.
The likes of Granit Xhaka, Gabriel Martinelli, Gabriel Magalhaes and Rob Holding have all been sent off so far.
Holding is the latest player to get a red card from a referee last night and Sinclair thinks we have to look at the manager to understand where this lack of on-field discipline is coming from.
He said on TalkSport: ‘I struggle to be able to defend how they’ve gone into that game.
‘Six red cards this season – Gabriel, Xhaka, Martinelli, Holding – the list goes on. Every time they go into a big game, they have head loss.
‘For me, it’s not one individual player, it has to come from the manager. He’s agitated, he’s animated on the side.’
Just Arsenal Opinion
For so long under Arsene Wenger, Arsenal was seen as a soft club that others can bully and beat.
We needed to change that narrative and Arteta has done a good job in making this team very hard to beat.
However, we need to check our discipline at this stage because it is not helpful to us anymore.
With so many suspensions, we will struggle to field a strong balanced team on occasions and that we have to eliminate from our game.
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Video – Mikel Arteta on Tottenham, the referee and bad news on Gabriel
It probably does not help with Arteta acting like a loonie on the touch line .
Truth of the matter is this team is going nowhere under the Kroenkes Dan they offered the man a brand new contract on the back of 3 straight embarrassing defeats, not to mention the average mediocre football been played and Ill discipline since he arrived.! If anyone believes we are on the up under this ownership they are gonna be very disappointed. I don’t even blame Arteta, although he is out of his depth but the owners hired him and rehired him for another 3 years because the fans are lapping this Arteta era up they can’t get enough and the kroenkes know that. Worst thing to ever happen to Arsenal is Stan Kroenke and club will never challenge under his ownership.
So what you are really saying is, you want a wealthy new owner to pump even more money into the club than Kroenke ?
Because what did Mancity owners know about football? I tell you,
Nothing, they had huge unlimited cash to inject into British football to give them credibility (Not to make money).
Who sold Arsenal to the Kroenkers? And why did they sell?
Once you know that, they are to blame for our downfall.
I tell you until we get a similar oil state owner to buy us and pump probably £700+ million into us in a short term we are never competing for the title…
So save your money and don’t go to the Arsenal games ( and the other posters on this site) if you want change, it will not be by complaining on here…
We are all fans of Arsenal, so let not have divisions amongst us, because that won’t change anything…..
The blessed England Captain Spit the Dog and his mate the DVD salesman are great strikers but suck up to referees and are card free zones…that awful muppet Tierney refused to sanction action for Kane chopping down Robertson against Liverpool in December and as for the other one I seem to remember him pleading innocent to breaking Gomes’ leg against Everton a few years ago and getting away with it. He is a cunning serial diver too.
Well if someone among the fans had said that, he would have been labelled anti arteta.
We spoke about how our team used to lack discipline in the dressing room and some players needed to go because of that, but we haven’t show we are discipline at all where it matters the most which is on the pitch. Nobody knows what goes down behind the close door but everyone can see what goes on the pitch from different angles.
To be honest Arteta can’t be blame alone on this and he shouldn’t be left behind either.
After all, he has taken many credits for a lot of things and he should be able to take blame for some of them as well
Very fair comments Kaay, @Dan Klopp,conte,pep and simone are or have been very animated”loonie” on the touch line for years. I can understand tactical changes which require instructions once the game as started but they should know their position/tactics prior to kick off imo…
Very hard to beat? we lost 12 PL games this season and conceded a ship load of goals 🧐
We went into big games against west ham, united and Chelsea.
Nobody got red carded.
This is victim blaming, and it is just ridiculous
More pies coming,hope you’ll be happy to have em.
While we have a manager, players and fans who cant see the real problems and alway stupidly blame the referee for our own falabilities, we will never be back in the big time. A lot of soul searching, looking in the mirror and rectifying our own stupid misdemeanours are needed because burying our head in the sand and blaming everything that it isnt will get us nowhere. Our team and our fans need a huge reality check as to why we shoot ourselves in the foot so often. Carry on as we are and we fail, wise up and we may go somewhere.
We acted like school kids in that match and the manager didn’t help after either.
Spot on Reggie.
Whilst it’s good to see the team developing some backbone which was seriously lacking towards the end of the AW era, this aggression needs to be controlled and turned into an asset not a liability. Too often this season we have thrown games away with poor mental judgement. The NLD was a typical example of that. Holdings red card could be seen coming way before it happened……it boggles the mind that no attempts were made to reign him…..as you say we shoot ourselves in the foot. Here’s hoping that we don’t trip over ourselves again in our last two games……WE NEED THAT 4th SPOT !!!
Reggie that is some real facts if only there was more fans like you in our fan base our ambitions would be a lot higher but it is what it is and we just have to accept that Arsenal will never be the club it once was.
Disagree Kev82
You, me and the gate post have no idea what the long term future will bring
I believed that Arsenal were in a prime spot to seal longevity under AW. Never thought that a club that boasted Winterburn, Adams, Dixon .. then onwards and upwards for years and year’s would fall off the cliff. It did and it will happen to the current best at some point
I already went into detail why the club will not rise again and my finger is pointed directly at the silent owner Sue as he was once quoted saying “I didn’t buy Arsenal to win trophies’ that statement alone should tell you everything you need to know about the ambitions of the owners. I’ve always said when Dein left the club it began to go down hill and Wenger stagnated and time passed him by, we went from 6 feet plus players to smaller technical players trying to mimic Barcelona in one of the most physical leagues on the planet not to mention selling off all our best players to pay for a new stadium which we were told was needed to compete with the best teams in the world to which we’re further away than ever – it’s a constant stream of lies and now we’re led to believe in a youth project that will come good in a few years and compete to win major trophies? I highly doubt it, but I respect your opinion Sue.
Last night’s match needed pragmatism and not throwing all eggs in the one basket and going for the juggular. We needed a draw so why not go for a 3-4-3 to frustrate them into mistakes.
3: Tomi, Holding Gabriel.
4: Cedric, Elneny, Xhaka, Tavares (Wingback not left back).
3: Saka, Eddie and Martinelli.
Defence first and attack on the counter with our front 3.
We can only live in hope that he gets it right against Newcastle.
I think if we win that game we become favourites as the Emirates faithful will be the 12th man for the last game against Everton.
Kev82
You put out a powerful argument and I agree with you. I just think that football is cyclical and at some point City will lose its way a bit in the same way that ManU after Fergie has.
I totally get it that the mega rich clubs will generally sit on the top of the pile but what can the rest do except try their best?
Hiring Klopp was a master stroke by Liverpool. In that respect Arsenal missed the boat by not aiming high enough when they should have been consolidating their long held top4 place with a view to winning the league and the CL and keeping up the longevity that I mentioned. Wenger did stagnate unfortunately and Emery didn’t last and we have a board that took a brave/foolhardy – depending on your point of view – decision to hire a first time manager.
You are well aware that I think Arteta will do well. I’m not giving him a ringing endorsement but I am looking at a man who in his first managerial role is on the cusp of CL football if he and the team can hold their nerve. I’d say that is pretty impressive.
What is hard to balance is the notion that a club of the stature of Arsenal should have been allowed to slide in the first place. Abramovitch would have sacked Wenger as soon as he stopped winning the league. I just believed I should be careful what I wished for and in the end it came back to bite me on my bottom
The problem here, in my opinion, is the manager comparisons made with MA.
How anyone can compare MA to klopp, pep, conteh, Wenger or any other experienced manager is beyond me.
He is still a relative novice, who lives every minute as if he’s still actually playing the game.
He needs to calm down on the touchline.
What I also find hard to fathom, is why professional players, earning megabucks at our club, do not understand the rules of the game.
Let’s take Holdings knee in the back, his judo throw and general wrestling of Son, before he smashed him with his shoulder.
Despite the referee talking to him, he continued to foul the player and got his marching orders.
Now, if I’m not mistaken, most fans saw what was coming as early as the knees in the back, so why couldn’t MA?
I’m not blaming MA for the players inability to play within the rules of the game, but for his nievity in not responding to it..
If he stood back and watched the overall game, rather than living every tackle and barking out incessant orders, there might just be more controlled play from his players.
At the end of the day, players are responsible for their behaviour on the pitch and the manager is responsible for installing discipline.