Gary Neville has criticised Arsenal defender Gabriel for ‘disrespecting’ Erling Haaland during the Gunners’ incredible 5-1 victory over Manchester City.
Arsenal sent a strong message to Premier League title rivals Liverpool and inflicted a damaging defeat on Pep Guardiola at the Emirates Stadium on Sunday.
It took Arsenal just two minutes to take the lead, Manuel Akanj’s error gifting Martin Odegaard the chance to slot past City goalkeeper Stefan Ortega.
In an electric start, the Gunners were celebrating a second soon after but the goal was ruled out for offside.
Manchester City equalised against the run of play shortly after half time through Erling Haaland, who clashed with several Arsenal players and manager Mikel Arteta in the corresponding fixture.
But Arsenal regained the lead just a minute later through Thomas Partey’s deflected strike, before the impressive Myles Lewis-Skelly added a third, emulating one of Haaland’s iconic celebrations in the process.
Kai Havertz scored a much-needed goal to pile the misery on Man City, who conceded again in injury-time – Ethan Nwaneri with the goal – to cap off a dismal showing for the reigning Premier League champions.
Gabriel celebrated in Haaland’s face after Arsenal’s early opener, clearly responding to the Norwegian striker’s antics back when these two teams last met in September.
Haaland chucked the ball at Gabriel’s head after John Stones scored an injury-time equaliser for Man City, before clashing with members of the Arsenal squad after full-time and infamously telling Arteta to ‘stay humble’.
The Arsenal squad could be forgiven for wanting to get one back at Haaland but Neville believes it was ‘disrespectful’ from Gabriel and says the incident made him feel ‘uneasy’.
‘I want to mention Gabriel and what he did to Haaland,’ the former Manchester United and England defender said on his Sky Sports podcast.
‘It happened to me actually at Highbury many, many years ago and we actually won 4-2 that day. A player screamed in my face.
‘I actually don’t like it, I think it’s a bit disrespectful. I get that Haaland was the pantomime villain here today but there was something about it that I didn’t like.
‘I was many things on a football pitch to be fair and ‘s*********y’ was my game full stop. But I never did that. I never went and screamed in a players face.
‘I just didn’t like that, it made me feel a little bit uneasy, it was a little bit disrespectful.’
Asked about Lewis-Skelly copying Haaland’s celebration, Guardiola said in his post-match press conference: ‘That’s good. Yeah, that’s good.’
Assessing a humbling afternoon for his side, the Manchester City boss added: ‘I only regret the last 25 minutes. We forgot to do what we should do, what we had done for 65 to 70 minutes.
‘Of course, it’s a difficult game in this stadium, against that team, conceding in the first minutes – it has happened many times this season.
‘But, after 10 to 15 minutes, I think we took the game and played really good. We are in it after 1-1 and we had good momentum.
‘We pass to make the transition with Omar [Marmoush] and then comes a deflection and the third goal.
‘But, after that, we then continued to do what you have to do defensively and we were a little bit more patient. When you’re playing that way, they can run and, of course, at 3-1 they are comfortable so it is more difficult.
‘I regret the last 15 to 20 minutes, but the rest was a really good game for our side. It’s difficult to understand when you see the result, but this is my feeling.’
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