Viktor Gyokeres has hit back after Freddie Ljungberg said he was ‘sad’ to watch Mikel Arteta’s current playing style at Arsenal, arguing that it is ‘easy’ to criticise ‘if you’re not on the pitch’.
Arsenal entered last weekend’s heavyweight contest at Liverpool with a 100 per cent record after two games having defeated both Manchester United and Leeds.
The Gunners had appeared to have turned a corner after a sluggish opening display at Old Trafford, putting five past Daniel Farke’s newly promoted side in front of a rapturous Emirates crowd.
But Mikel Arteta’s side fell to a 1-0 loss away to the Premier League champions, with Dominik Szoboszlai’s sublime 83rd-minute free-kick ultimately proving the difference on Merseyside.
The visitors managed just one shot on target in the match and there was some frustration amongst Arsenal’s fanbase over an apparent lack of ambition from their team at Anfield.
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Gary Neville was left puzzled by Arsenal’s negative choices in possession and said that passing backwards had become a ‘disease’ in the modern game.
Former Arsenal winger Llungberg, meanwhile, admitted he was saddened by Arteta’s tactics across the game as he analysed the performance on Viaplay.
‘I always say to people that I was proud, when I was away, I travelled the world, and people would say, “Oh, I don’t really support you or Arsenal, but I always want to see you guys play”,’ Llungberg, who also managed the club on an interim basis before Arteta took charge, said.
‘It was beautiful football, it was offensive football, you were going for it, to win it. That was what I was mostly proud of, not the trophies and all that kind of stuff.
‘When I see a little bit of what I’ve seen today [Sunday] with Arsenal, to just minimise risk all the time, taking a lot of time on, for example, free-kicks… that is a little bit sad to see.
‘I would like them to try a bit more. They have fantastic players.’
Llungberg did, though, stress that Arteta’s choices must be ‘respected’ and fans should wait until the end of the season to make their final judgement.
‘We have to respect Arteta, he is the manager of Arsenal Football Club,’ the Swede added.
‘We’re talking here from the outside and we don’t really know what’s happening on the training ground and that’s how he wants to play.
‘He’s employed to be the Arsenal manager and that’s how he wants to play the football.
‘He’s quite clear that he’s not disappointed in how they play, “That’s how I set them up, that’s how I think we’re going to win the league”, so we’ll have to see after 38 games if that’s the right way to go or not.
‘But he seems very, very clear that this is how Arsenal is going to play football.’
Gyokeres was often left isolated up front against Liverpool and was perhaps let down by a lack of services from his new team-mates, with Gabriel Martinelli especially poor down the left flank.
But the striker – who opened his account with a brace in Arsenal’s previous match against Leeds – is confident the side will come good if they ‘continueon the same path’.
On the Gunners being amongst the favourites for the title, Gyokeres told Sportbladet: ‘It’s positive that others have that image. We want to win titles and go for it.
‘We have an extremely good team. It’s about working hard and getting into it with the new players we have and making it work.
‘The matches we’ve played so far have felt good, you can always do things better. It’s not like it’s going to go game after game. We just have to continue on the same path.’
Pressed on Ljungberg’s comments about Arsenal’s tactics at Anfield, Gyokeres responded: ‘It’s easy [to criticise] if you’re not on the pitch to say what you think and feel about a match. Then it’s difficult to steer it where you want.
‘We did well defensively and they didn’t get many chances. Then we would have liked to do even better offensively.
‘It’s not easy to do every aspect perfectly every match.’
Gyokeres had hoped to have resolved his future earlier in the summer, but the forward had to wait until late July to seal a move to Arsenal.
The attacker’s camp had been under the impression he could leave Sporting for £58million, but the Portuguese champions denied the existence of a supposed gentleman’s agreement, meaning transfer negotiations dragged on behind the scenes.
‘It’s been tough. We waited a lot longer for a period,’ he said of the summer transfer saga.
‘But it’s nice that it was finished in a decent amount of time and that I got to be there at Arsenal during the pre-season.’
While Gyokeres admits ‘it could have ended better’ at Sporting, he insists there were certain aspects of his departure that were out of his control.
‘Of course it was sad, but there was nothing I could have done differently about how it ended,’ he continued.
‘It happened this time, it can happen sometimes in life. Of course it could have ended better. It was nothing I could control.’
Gyokeres is currently away on international duty with the Swedish national team ahead of their World Cup qualifying matches against Slovenia and Kosovo.
Arteta will no doubt be hoping Gyokeres returns to Arsenal fully fit and firing for side’s next encounter with Nottingham Forest in ten days’ time.
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