Arsenal played like 'dinosaurs'! Mikel Arteta's side slammed for having 'small team' mentality against Man City as Roy Keane launches scathing assessment of Premier League title hopefuls

The Gunners found themselves reduced to 10 men after Leandro Trossard was shown a second yellow card for time-wasting late in the first half. After the dismissal of the Belgian, Arteta instructed his men to adopt an ultra-defensive stance by retreating deep into their own half in a bid to protect a slender 2-1 lead.

Despite their efforts to stifle City, Arsenal eventually conceded in stoppage time, with John Stones scoring a dramatic equaliser to secure a 2-2 draw. They had only 12.5 per cent of the ball in the second half with Jurrien Timber and Kai Havertz setting an unwanted Premier League record as they failed to complete a single pass in the match.

Speaking on SkyBet’sStick to Football, Keane lashed out at Arteta and said: "If Tony Pulis, Sam Allardyce, Steve Bruce or Neil Warnock set up a team like that for the second half, they are ‘dinosaurs’. When Arsenal do it, it’s called ‘brilliant’, it’s ‘concentration levels’. When they won the ball back, which they did every now and again, try and look after it and try and get up the pitch. There was an incident when [Ben] White just kicked it out of play, [Declan] Rice a couple of times, just kicked it up the pitch. This is Arsenal we’re talking about – not a Championship team in the FA Cup – that’s hanging in there."

Keane didn’t stop at just calling out Arsenal’s defensive display; he also criticised what he perceived as a “small team mentality.”

"I'm on about when you've got it [the ball], still look after it," he said.

"Don't even worry about playing one up front, but when you do get it try and get four, five, six passes. They were just booting it like a small team with a small mentality. When I see England international players just booting it out of play I'm going: 'What are you? League One? League Two?'"

Arsenal will look to return to winning ways when they host a struggling Leicester side on Saturday. This will be followed by a high-profile Champions League encounter against Paris Saint-Germain, where their credentials will be put to the test by Luis Enrique's side.