Gary Neville believes Arsenal may be guilty of failing to focus properly ahead of important matches as Manchester United prepare to visit the Emirates Stadium on Sunday.
Arsene Wenger s men have not beaten United in the Premier League since May 2011, a run of eight games stretching back to the infamous 8-2 thrashing the Gunners suffered at Old Trafford in August that year.
A decorated United stalwart as a player, Neville knows exactly what it takes to get the better of fellow heavyweight teams, the right-back having ended his career with a haul of eight league titles, many of them won at the expense of Arsenal.
And he has doubts over Arsenal s mental state as Wenger s side seek to bounce back from a chastening 3-2 Champions League loss to Olympiacos.
If I m Per Mertesacker this weekend, on the Friday morning before a Sunday game of this magnitude I would be thinking, I need to communicate to Hector Bellerin that Memphis Depay will always try to cut inside on to his right foot, and that I need to be there inside to help him, although I need Bellerin to show him the outside , Neville wrote in The Daily Telegraph.
Is Bellerin thinking he has to stay tight to Memphis, and to pull Aaron Ramsey back towards him, so that I don t get exposed by Anthony Martial in a channel one on one for pace?
I may be wrong, but I sense that Arsenal players go into training on Friday morning thinking about how they ll pass the ball, score with a bicycle kick, how much fun they are going to have. On the Saturday morning they still might not be switched on. Sunday morning is too late. It s fatal to think like that before a big game.
