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News
Martin Keown criticised two Arsenal defenders for moment in Burnley defeat
Martin Keown was left fuming with Arsenal’s centre-backs David Luiz and Pablo Mari for one incident that occurred during Saturday afternoon’s 1-1 draw against Burnley.
The Gunners left Turf Moor with just a point in the Premier League fixture, something they’ll be extremely frustrated about.
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang scored the opening goal for the visitors, before a huge mix up at the back saw Granit Xhaka’s pass inside his box ricochet into the net off Chris Wood.
There was plenty of drama in the second half too before the game eventually finished 1-1.
The VAR opted not to get involved when the ball appeared to strike Burnley’s Erik Pieters on the arm, but it did intervene to ensure Pieters’ red card was rescinded for a separate attack where the ball struck his shoulder on the goal-line.
Pundit and ex-Gunners star Keown singled out in his post-match analysis another moment in the second half that frustrated him.
Burnley went extremely close to making it 2-1 when goalkeeper Bernd Leno made a great save from Chris Wood, but the build up to that chance saw the hosts carve through the Arsenal defence easily.
Keown was amazed with the rashness of Luiz who lost out when he went charging for the ball and questioned his organisation alongside centre-half partner Mari.
“Look at the Arsenal central defenders here. This is lazy defending,” Keown told (2:40pm, 6 March).
“David Luiz dives in and completely leaves his defence exposed with that space. I just don’t understand it, they are not together. David Luiz is walking at this point.”
TBR’s View:
It was a great attacking move that Keown is referring to when Wood went close to scoring, but defensively, yes, the central defensive pairing were extremely suspect.
The Luiz-Mari combination looked fairly assured for most of the match barring that.
Fortunately, they weren’t punished by Wood for a lapse in concentration and all the talking points will be towards even more VAR controversy.