Gary Neville thinks Arsenal's defenders should have coped a lot better with Romelu Lukaku in their 2-0 defeat to Chelsea on Sunday.
The Blues left the Emirates Stadium with all three points after Lukaku found the back of the net on his debut.
The Belgium international picked the ball up with his back to goal, holding off Pablo Mari before releasing it and ending up unmarked in the six-yard box, where he had the simple task of converting Reece James' pinpoint cross into an empty net.
It was a tough task for the Gunners to deal with the powerful Lukaku all game-long, but Neville, speaking on Sky Sports' Monday Night Football, thinks there should have been a plan in place to prevent the £97.5million man "having a field day".
When asked if Arsenal should have dealt better with the new Chelsea No. 9, Neville replied: “Yes. I said before the game, the Arsenal midfield players needed to play like a box in front of those two central defenders.
"We saw Brentford destroy Arsenal’s centre-backs so we knew that Lukaku was going to have a field day if he wasn’t protected.
"They didn’t stop that ball going in and I felt sorry for Mari. You just felt like he was pinned constantly.
"However, I don’t think he helped himself. He’s an experienced centre-back, he’s had a lot of years in the game now.
"One thing you can never do, as a smaller centre-back against a taller striker, you can’t let them dictate the position of where you are going to be.
"He found himself pinned by Lukaku and going deeper. He had to be braver and step in front. If he stayed in line, up with his other back players, Lukaku has to change his position and the midfield players, Lokonga and Xhaka, they’re nearer to it.
"He caused himself a massive problem by dropping deeper than his back line because he’s fearful of what Lukaku could do.
"The braver thing and the more sensible thing was to step-up past Lukaku and shift him.
"You’ve got to step up to the edge of the box but he continually got pinned.
"He was never going to be able to deal with Lukaku in the duels one on one, nobody can, he’s unplayable. You never drop deeper than the rest of your players.
"It was a really difficult day for Mari but he could’ve helped himself an awful lot more. Lukaku kept moving him, kept holding him.
"It was a brilliant centre-forward performance, let’s be clear, but he got messed around a lot, the Arsenal centre-back, and it caused a lot of problems to his team.
"Brilliant from Lukaku but there was a better way to deal with him.”
