Kevin Campbell has defended Mikel Arteta after his triple substitution against Manchester United was blamed for Arsenal’s loss to the Red Devils.
The Gunners visited Old Trafford at the weekend with their 100% start to the season still intact.
However, the Red Devils defeated them 3-1 to earn all the points from the encounter.
When the Gunners were losing the fixture 2-1, Arteta made three changes, bringing on Fabio Vieira, Emile Smith Rowe and Eddie Nketiah to replace Albert Sambi Lokonga, Oleksandr Zinchenko and Martin Odegaard.
United scored their third goal two minutes after Arteta had made these substitutions.
Some pundits blamed the Arsenal gaffer for that and believe his subs made Arsenal weaker than they were before they introduced the new players into the game.
But Campbell disagrees, he tells Football Insider:
“The issue Mikel Arteta had was that we were losing. We were losing the game.
“It took a while to equalise. United caught us on the break and we were back to square one. As a manager, what do you do?
“Smith Rowe has not played enough minutes and neither has Vieira. Smith Rowe can nick a goal and create something and so can Vieira. We had to try and nick a goal.
“I do not understand fans saying it upset the balance of the team. The balance was upset because we were losing.”
Just Arsenal Opinion
Arsenal had a bad day and they took the decision to switch things around because we needed a different approach to breaking United down.
In another match, the new players could have helped us get something from the game. It didn’t work this time, but that does not mean Arteta didn’t know what he was doing.
CALLING ALL ARSENAL FANS! Anyone who would like to contribute an Article or Video opinion piece on JustArsenal, please contact us through this link…
Full in-depth review of Arsenal’s Transfer Window with Alfie and Rob