Football pundit Graeme Souness has dealt Arsenal a huge insult tonight, with the former Liverpool great suggesting the Gunners played like a “semi-professional team” after they threw away a 2-0 lead to draw 2-2 with Watford.
According to Football London, Souness was not impressed with Arsenal’s performance, especially at the back.
Arsenal threw the points away via two defensive errors. First, Sokratis Papastathopoulos attempted to play out from the back, only for Tom Cleverley to capitalise and halve the deficit, before David Luiz gave away a penalty which Roberto Pereyra converted.
Arsenal entered the break in cruise control after a brace from Pierre Emerick-Aubameyang cancelled out the early scare.
However, in the second-half, the Gunners hardly had a memorable opportunity, and in the end, were rather fortunate to avoid the loss due to a collection of errors, two of which led to the Hornets’ goals.
Souness was so unimpressed by Arsenal’s performance, he insinuated they were not a “proper team” and instead played like a “semi-professional” side.
Proper teams don’t play like that. Proper teams don’t have a first-half like that and then play like that in the second half. Proper teams just don’t do that. That was a game where, at 2-1, it was time to dig in, regroup and make sure they didn’t lose the game. They should’ve lost the game in the second half when the kids came on, they were all over the place. Arsenal today in that second half were like a semi-professional team playing football.
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Although Souness’ comments are certainly exaggerated, Arsenal’s second half performance was nothing short of shocking, and their repeated defensive mistakes are inexcusable.
