Gary Neville questions why ‘frustrating’ Arsenal had to concede an equaliser against Man City before they upped their game and ‘set the standard’ for title race in 5-1 win

Gary Neville was impressed with Arsenal‘s rampant second half display against Manchester City but admitted he felt a sense of frustration with the fact it took an equaliser for them to start playing with real intent.

The Gunners made a statement with the 5-1 victory at the Emirates but it certainly wasn’t 90 minutes of domination.

Martin Odegaard opened the scoring in the second minute as Arsenal made a fast start but the home side allowed the champions to get themselves back into the game.

Erling Haaland drew his side level shortly after half-time and there were nervous faces among the home fans.

However, the equaliser proved to be a catalyst for 30 minutes of breathtaking football from Mikel Arteta‘s team.

Thomas Partey restored the lead just one minute later before goals from Myles Lewis-Skelly, Kai Havertz and Ethan Nwaneri completed the rout.   

The gunners restored their lead one minute after the equaliser and never looked back 

And Sky Sports pundit Neville questioned why they couldn’t have played like that before Haaland’s strike on his podcast.

He said: ‘they can frustrate me Arsenal. They frustrated me for large parts of that match actually.

‘When you’re 1-0 up you can let the game drift and sleepwalk a little bit… that’s what they were doing. You can’t just let games drift because the other team builds confidence.

‘Arsenal allowed City to have too much of the ball and keep the game at a slow pace. Yes they did react. What Arsenal demonstrated after conceding the Haaland goal is what they’re capable of.

‘What does it need an Erling Haaland goal for them to get to a level they can get to where players are running forward with real intent.

‘Why wait? Don’t wait you’ve got 14 games to go. Do not wait, go for it. All of a sudden there was a spring in their step, they livened up. 

‘What they demonstrated in that last half an hour is they can be good in open play. They’ve set a standard in that last half an hour and Mikel Arteta should be reinforcing that now for the next 10 days.’