Martin Keown shuts down 'ugly' Arsenal title race claim and defends Mikel Arteta tactics

Martin Keown has taken a cheeky dig at Chris Sutton after he tipped Arsenal to be 'the ugliest Premier League-winning team in history'

Martin Keown has leapt to the defence of Mikel Arteta after Chris Sutton tipped Arsenal to be 'the ugliest Premier League-winning team in history'. The Gunners enjoyed a 2-1 win over Chelsea at the Emirates Stadium on Sunday evening as they restored their five-point lead at the top of the table.

Speaking on BBC Radio 5 Live after the game, Sutton gave Arsenal a backhanded compliment. The Blackburn Rovers striker backed the north Londoners to 'get over the line' despite a somewhat disappointing performance.

"Set-piece Arsenal, again," said Sutton. "I think they are going to win it. If they get over the line, will they be the ugliest Premier League-winning team in history? The performance wasn't there."

In an interview with football.london ahead of this week's midweek Premier League fixtures, which will all be broadcast on TNT Sports and discovery+, Keown suggested that Arsenal should be applauded for their innovation from set-pieces.

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The Gunners legend said: "No, I don't think there's anything ugly about it – when I look back at the Bayern Munich performance, when they beat Bayern Munich handsomely playing flowing football. I just think that this team is demonstrating that they can play any way."

Keown continued: "I was looking earlier in the season, there were four or five teams that turned up to Arsenal that didn't even have a shot on target in some of those matches.

"And it's like, well, and then people saying, 'Arsenal are not really creating', but teams just sit on the edge of the box and to not have a single shot for 90 minutes – you know, that's four games on the bounce during the season.

"They've had to be imaginative, and they've had to find other ways. And in the end, it's a dominance of possession that gives you all those free kicks, corners, throw-ins, and then ultimately, there's just so many of them, and they're so good at it, they're gonna score from those areas.

"So, I don't see that that's ugly. I just feel that that's someone wanting to put a label on something, cause he's a bit bored, Chris, and that he wants to spice the day up a bit."

On whether Arsenal have become reliant on set-pieces, Keown pointed out that it's simply become a trend again to capitalise on dead-ball scenarios. The TNT Sports pundit said: "This is not Arsenal. This is the Premier League. This is Europe."

Keown added: "They've realised that, ‘Why not? Let’s not be too posh to go after the set pieces'. Now you've seen that, throw-ins as well. If you've got someone in the group that’s handy, let's do it.

"I played under Graham Taylor back in the day. Graham kicked the ball off the pitch so that the opposition had a throw-in because we had one more player on the pitch than everyone else. It’s unbelievable. I'm seeing so many teams do that now.

"The more analysts we have in the game, it's sort of prominent, then we seem to be growing, don't we, back into these areas, and they were all there when I first came into the game, where set pieces were– you had all the teams pencilled out that were passable, very few, by the way.

"And that's grown massively in the Premier League. And then there were really good teams among that, who were good at set-pieces that you had to be mindful of. So, it's back again."

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