Former Manchester United captain Gary Neville(Image: James Gill - Danehouse/Getty Images)

Gary Neville and Mike Dean agree as Arsenal suffer 'obvious' referee error vs Man City

by · football.london

Former Manchester United captain Gary Neville and ex-Premier League referee Mike Dean agreed that Arsenal should have had a free kick in the first half after a blatant foul by Bernardo Silva.

Martin Odegaard gave Arsenal an early lead at the Emirates Stadium and put the Gunners immediately in the ascendency. However, he felt hard done by when Bernardo barged straight into him and referee Peter Bankes chose not to award a foul in their favour.

Neville was confused by the call and questioned Sky Sports' resident referee expert about the decision on commentary. "I thought that was a foul from Bernardo Silva," he said.

"It just looked like he was charged at there, I mean it's not very good from the referee. It's the most obvious foul you'll see."

Chipping in, Dean added: "Yeah I agree. It's just a simple free-kick in a game like this, they are dead easy free-kicks to give to keep control of the game.

"It's just one he has let go." Neville became ever more unpopular with the Arsenal supporters in midweek after describing them as 'entitled' in the aftermath of the Myles Lewis-Skelly red card against Wolverhampton Wanderers.

Speaking on Stick to Football, brought to you by Sky Bet, Neville said: "They [Arsenal fans] use language like corruption, which means they think he’s [Michael Oliver] getting paid and bought off, which is obviously not the case. We [at Manchester United] lived in a club which created a siege mentality about the referees.

"Arsenal are doing a bit of that as well – there’s no doubt that what Arsenal do is inflame the situation after the game rather than calm it down, they’ve done that for 12 months, but we can’t say that’s wrong having played in the dressing room that we did. I’m not bothered because Arsenal fans are not great fans of me anyway, but I think they’ve become so entitled.

"They were playing against Wolves. Wolves have had more bad decisions against them in the last 15 months than any other club in the country it feels like.

"I just feel like every time Arsenal have a decision against them and it was a bad decision, but I feel like the exaggeration in the response… Maybe it was the same with Manchester United back in the day and that’s why people didn’t like us and maybe that’s what Arsenal are creating now, that siege mentality and Mikel Arteta likes that."


Join the football.london Arsenal WhatsApp channel

Join our Arsenal WhatsApp channel and get all the latest breaking news, opinion, podcasts and in-depth stories from football.london's dedicated Arsenal writers straight to your phone!

By following this free service you will be the first to know the news from the Emirates Stadium as it happens, when it happens.

To join our dedicated Arsenal channel, all you have to do is click this link and you can join thousands of others following our Gunners coverage!

If you're curious, you can check out our privacy policy here.