Danny Mills

Sun 17 April 2022 18:12, UK

The Arsenal players need to defy Mikel Arteta’s instructions if they want to start winning games again, according to Danny Mills.

Speaking exclusively to Football Insider, the ex-Man City and England full-back claimed Arsenal are being let down by their lack of leaders.

The Gunners fell to a third consecutive defeat in the Premier League yesterday (16 April) as they lost 1-0 to Southampton.

As quoted by football.london after the game, Arteta admitted it was a “huge” missed opportunity after Tottenham’s 1-0 loss to Brighton earlier on in the day.

His side are down in sixth and remain three points behind their north London rivals.

“Arsenal have become Spursy,” Mills told Football Insider correspondent Connor Whitley.

“They were on a really good run then all of a sudden they are fragile, there’s no backbone. That’s been their problem.

“They’ve got a lot of good, young attacking players but they are trying to put square pegs into round holes and it’s not quite working for them.

“Do Arsenal have that fight and tenaciousness of the Arsenal of old? They clearly do not.

“When you lose a couple of key players, Tierney and Partey, it doesn’t help either.

“When we talk about leaders, it’s players with a voice, influence and experience. So when things aren’t quite working on the pitch, whatever the manager’s instructions are, you’re not a robot and you can change.

“Football is one of the most fluids games. You can have a game plan but it might change, it’s not stop-start, you can’t reset every two minutes.

“If things aren’t going your way you need players to be adaptable, to adjust to certain situations and tell their teammates to adjust and do things a different way.

“If you don’t have that ability within players and they constantly look to the bench then there’s an old saying, if you’re looking at the bench then you should be on it.”

In other news, Arsenal are lining up a bid for a 23-year-old who’s wowed Pep Guardiola and his club are willing to sell.