Jamie Carragher hit out at Aaron Ramsdale after the Arsenal goalkeeper was beaten at his near post by a long-range strike from Kevin de Bruyne in the opening minutes of Wednesday night's seismic title showdown against Manchester City.
After dropping points in recent weeks, Arsenal knew that a positive result against the defending champions at the Etihad was imperative if they were to stay ahead of Pep Guardiola's side in the race for the Premier League crown.
But the Gunners made the worst possible start when De Bruyne lashed a low drive past Ramsdale in the seventh minute. And Carragher felt that the Arsenal goalkeeper should have done better with the strike.
The Liverpool icon and Sky Sports pundit tweeted: “Normally it’s KDB who feeds Haaland, roles reversed to make it 1-0! Very poor from Ramsdale.”
Carragher's tweet taking aim at Ramsdale comes just days after the former Sheffield United shot-stopper dropped a huge clanger in Friday night's 3-3 draw against struggling Southampton - another result that could cost Arsenal in the title race.
It was Erling Haaland, City's top goalscorer, who teed up De Bruyne for the strike, which left the Gunners with a mountain to climb. The goal came after City played their way through the visitors' aggressive press - something which impressed BT Sport commentator Lucy Ward.
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Speaking on commentary, she said: “Tell you what, that was almost a perfect build-up. Arsenal decided to press, they decided to press with numbers, aggressively, and Man City had the answer to it. Passed really well out of that press and that man there - look how much Arsenal are pressing, one long ball and all of a sudden Arsenal are out of shape and de Bruyne just drives at the defence.
“It’s all about the finish as well, he took it quite early. By that stage Arsenal are out of shape, they’d committed players forward - what about the finish? We’ve seen it in the Champions League, if you’re going to go after City with a high press, you have to win it because they just cut right through you. That’s exactly what they did then.”
Arsenal headed into the match five points clear of the reigning champions but knew that only a win would do given they had already played two games more than their hosts.
John Stones headed home a second goal for the hosts on the stroke of half-time to leave City in control. The champions are gunning for a fifth title in six years and have clawed back a huge deficit in recent weeks to hunt the Gunners down at the summit.
