Gary Neville’s judgement of Arsenal throughout this season has simply been incorrect, and seemingly favourable to Manchester United who have had a disastrous season compared to the Gunners. His misjudgement of these north London side started at the start of the season in August.
Firstly, his analysis of Ben White and why he would struggle in the Premier League has been completely inaccurate. The Englishman has been quality for Arsenal this season and is a big reason why Mikel Arteta’s side has kept the most clean sheets in this campaign compared to any previous season under the Spaniard.
While Arsenal have had a disappointing end to this season, even when the Gunners were thriving, Neville’s takes have always been poorly judged, and extremely negative. This was epitomised when he predicted Manchester United to overtake Arsenal in the top four race with no evidence that the Red Devils had any quality to fight for a place in the Champions League.
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At the start of this season, Neville spoke of his inability to understand the transfer strategy Edu was putting into place.
“I'm not sure what Arsenal's transfer strategy is. It seems a bit over the place. Maybe there is one, but it's not clear,” he said.
“Sometimes you can see a left field signing and think you can see where it comes from, but there's quite a few of them at Arsenal.”
This was a lazy take by the Sky Sports pundit as it was clear that Edu’s transfer strategy was to sign young players who have the mentality and skillset to fit in Arteta’s system. And this recruitment strategy is why Arsenal have overachieved by being in fifth place, which was not expected of the team at the start of the campaign.
When Arsenal were thriving due to the new signings mixing well with the Hale End stars already at the club, Neville again disregarded the progress Arteta had achieved throughout the season and snubbed Aaron Ramsdale and Emile Smith Rowe for the Premier League half team of the season, despite both players being on the top of their game and the most inform players in the league at the time.
This was made worse in March when Neville claimed that the ceiling for Arteta’s career at Arsenal is a top-four finish because clubs such as Manchester United are more elite setups. The same Manchester United that could finish in eighth place this season if they fail to beat Crystal Palace away from home on the final day of the season. Another poor judgement of the current situation at Arsenal, and a bias toward Manchester United.
Neville also went on to slam Granit Xhaka for his honest interview by labelling him a “disgrace” in moments throughout his Arsenal career. Despite Xhaka being unable to control his emotions, this was once again an unfair take by Neville, as the Swiss international has been key to Arsenal this season, and was given an honest judgement rather than giving a typical media interview response.
Neville has been consistently wrong about Arsenal this season, and more often than not Arteta’s side have gone on to prove him wrong.
