Arsenal's 'inferiority complex' to Man City may stop Gunners from winning Premier League title as Graeme Souness blasts Mikel Arteta for 'extreme' defensiveness vs Man City

The Scottish pundit called Sunday's top-of-the-table clash a "horrible spectacle", criticising Arteta's decision to park the bus after going down to 10 men against Guardiola's side. According to Souness, the Gunners should have utilised their attacking talent more, claiming: "If you play like that 100 times, 95% of the time you'll concede goals."

Arsenal have received plenty of criticism for their defensive approach in the second half of the City game, but ultimately they had a lead to defend and almost left the Etihad with all three points. Arteta has fired back at these complaints, and argued that trying to play more expansively with 10 men would have been a naive approach.

"Arsenal had such an inferiority complex against City," Souness said on the Three Up Front podcast. "They’ll be coming away from that game thinking: ‘Wow, they’re so much better than us, we’ll never win the league’. Even in the first half they weren’t really matching City blow for blow. City are a fabulous team but when you go there, you have to be brave and take them on. Right now, teams are going to the Etihad and they’re beaten before the game has even started... They’ve shown an inferiority complex when it comes to City. They were happy to sit back and take whatever came their way at the Etihad, without getting up the pitch and trying to cause a problem. I don’t think that was a great sign."

The opinions of pundits like Souness won't bother Arteta, given that the Spaniard was only seconds away from masterminding a famous away win at the Etihad. His team will have to lick their wounds and go again; this Saturday, they welcome newly promoted Leicester to the Emirates. Nothing less than three points will do for Arsenal.