Gary Neville has said on his self-titled podcast that Arsenal goalkeeper Bernd Leno has come in from some unfair criticism after his performance at the weekend.
Arsenal drew 1-1 with Burnley on Saturday, in a game where they rather gifted the Clarets a goal.
Granit Xhaka took most of the flak for his error, as his cross field pass hit Chris Wood and deflected beyond Leno.
However, the £19 million German goalkeeper (BBC Sport) also received his fair share of criticism after the game.
Plenty of observers suggested that the Arsenal stopper should never have played the pass into Xhaka, as he was under too much pressure.
But Neville feels that Leno would have been under instruction from Mikel Arteta to play that ball into the midfielder.
“I think ultimately goalkeepers play better than some outfield players would have done 20 years ago,” he said.
“The game has changed and it should change. We should welcome these changes.
“Gone are the days now where I sit on Monday Night Football and would criticise Xhaka. I would criticise him for the execution, but not for the principle.
“For me what we are seeing is that this is normality – that players are going to play out from their own box, but the execution was wrong.
“The idea that he was given a bad pass by his goalkeeper, I don’t go along with that. That pass was expected to be given, they’re coached to give that pass there. Xhaka just gets it wrong.”
Arteta actually spoke up in defence of his style after the game, which would suggest that Neville’s comments are spot on.
Arsenal do always back themselves to play out from the back, and they have had success as well as failures this season.
Arteta has always spoken about his long-term project at Arsenal, and it seems unthinkable that this latest mishap will cause him to deter from his favoured style of play – so Leno will almost certainly continue to take risks with his distribution, even after Saturday’s disaster.
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