Liverpool icon Jamie Carragher has defended Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta for the tactics he deployed against Chelsea on Sunday.
The Gunners lost 2-0 to their London rivals, the same result they suffered against newly-promoted Brentford on the opening day of the season, to leave them in 19th place with a trip to Manchester City their next Premier League fixture.
Arteta received considerable criticism for opting to play a back four against the Blues despite beating them at Stamford Bridge last season by utilising a 3-4-3 system, the same formation that Chelsea manager Thomas Tuchel typically favours.
However, Carragher has claimed that whilst the Spaniard was perhaps naive, it would be unfair to claim that he didn't have a plan for the clash against the reigning champions of Europe.
“Yes I could", he told Sky Sports when asked if he could see what Arsenal's plan for Romelu Lukaku was.
"There was a lot of criticism for the manager, when you have a set of bad results and people say he hasn’t got a clue, what was the plan?
"Mikel Arteta had a plan, we studied it this morning, it hasn’t worked, maybe it was a touch of naivety, but when you play against Chelsea, there’s a lot of talk about Lukaku but that’s not the only problem, it’s how you deal with their system. A centre-forward and two No. 10’s, with wing-backs who play as wingers.
“Holding’s job was to look after Kai Havertz, Mari was in the middle with Lukaku and Mason Mount was deeper with Granit Xhaka. They almost went man to man, maybe a touch naive.
“The two goals, they went away from the system we’ve been talking about slightly and they’ve got caught out."
