‘Mikel Arteta is morphing into Jose Mourinho’ – Carragher

Liverpool legend Jamie Carragher believes Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta has drawn inspiration from Jose Mourinho rather than Pep Guardiola.

The Gunners head coach worked under Guardiola at Manchester City and he has frequently been compared to the legendary Spanish manager since leaving the Etihad Stadium for north London.

However, Arsenal have relied upon defensive solidity rather than free-flowing attacking football over the past 12 months, with Arteta moving away from Guardiola’s preferred philosophy.

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The north London outfit conceded the fewest number of goals in the Premier League last season (29) and, despite a recent blip, they have kept six clean sheets in 13 matches across all competitions so far this campaign.

As a result, Carragher believes Arteta is now more similar to Mourinho than Guardiola.

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What has Jamie Carragher said?

After Arsenal’s 2-2 draw against Liverpool on Sunday, Carragher revealed his thoughts on Arteta to Sky Sports.

“The interesting thing is when we’ve been watching Arsenal – and it’s not just been this season, I’ve been thinking this for a long time,” he began.

“But we go back to this fixture last season, end of January, early February. Because Arteta worked with Pep Guardiola, we’re almost thinking this is a Pep Guardiola disciple.

“If you look at the two most successful managers of the last 10-15 years, you’ve got Guardiola here and you’ve got Mourinho here, almost at the other end of the spectrum.

“Mikel Arteta is slowly morphing into a Mourinho type of manager. No one really thought that would happen. I just think it’s really interesting.

“You see today, 2-1 up, pressing Liverpool, on top of Liverpool, playing really well, they retreated in the second half. I know they got a couple of injuries at the back, but they still had the midfield players playing, they still had some attacking players playing.

“You think: ‘Can you get on the ball? Can you go forward?’ To try and take the sting out of the pressure they’re under.

“That’s all from the manager, we see it too often now. I get what happened at City. But what they did here against Brighton, what they did against Bournemouth… Yeah, you’re under pressure, but you keep the ball a bit more, you’re still a threat going forward.

“It feels very… this is what Jose was like at Camp Nou with Inter Milan. It’s not a criticism, this is an observation. It’s going back 12 months.

Carragher added: “Maybe it’s because Arteta looks at his attacking players and thinks: ‘We’re not as good as they’ve got at Man City.’ And they’re not. ‘We’ve got to win the league by being the best team defensively.’

“That’s what they were last season. And I think they possibly still are just now, they’ve just dropped goals because they’re down to 10 men in certain games.

“But this idea that Arsenal play great football and that he’s a Pep Guardiola man – he’s not!”