Gary Neville Calls For Arsenal To Show “Maturity” Against Manchester City

By The Editor
on 1st October 2023

Gary Neville previews next weekend’s top-of-the-table clash…

Sky Sports pundit Gary Neville has called on Arsenal to show “maturity” when they welcome Manchester City next weekend in a top-of-the-table clash, he said on The Gary Neville Podcast.

One point separates last season’s title contenders after Pep Guardiola’s team suffered their first defeat of the campaign at Wolves on Saturday.

We closed the gap with a dominant 4-0 win at struggling Bournemouth as we returned to winning ways following last week’s derby stalemate.

Neville has called on Arsenal to show something they have failed to demonstrate in a Premier League game against Manchester City under Guardiola.

We are yet to defeat the treble winners in a league game during the Spaniard’s reign and while we dominated them in the corresponding fixture last term, the visitors secured a 3-1 win.

Our home form has been shaky this season and our lack of defensive security stems from last term – something many put down to excessive emotion.

“What I want to see from Arsenal is maturity,” Neville explained.

“I don’t want to see them like a boxer coming out throwing a lot of punches and looking really exciting, I want to see a maturity in their game.

“I want to see them build a performance that’s got might in it, that’s got strength in it and is clinical. I want to see them put in a championship performance.”

The former Manchester United skipper believes that sending an early message to the champions is crucial, one that makes them feel that this season it’ll be different with Arsenal.

“Put a performance in that tells Manchester City that this is a different team. You remember Manchester City playing in that game with seven or eight games to go at the Etihad where they absolutely beat them up,” he added.

“They looked like little boys, Arsenal. That hasn’t gotta happen next week.”

As Mikel Arteta always stresses, the game will be decided in both boxes and one thing we mustn’t do, is hand them a pathetic goal.

We have gifted goals at the Emirates on many occasions over the past year and more often than not we’re good enough to recover, we won’t against that lot.