Gary Neville has hit out at Martin Zubimendi's recent form and said he's been left underwhelmed by the Spanish midfielder this season. The Gunners returned to winning ways on Saturday night as they beat Newcastle 1-0 through Eberechi Eze's early strike to return to the top of the table. However, it was a nervy display, with David Raya making several important saves after Eddie Howe's side caused plenty of problems for their opponents.
One Arsenal player to struggle on Saturday evening was Zubimendi, a £60million arrival from Real Sociedad last summer. The Spanish midfielder started the season superbly, but in recent months his performances have dipped and Neville singled him out for criticism.
'I thought at the start of the season that Zubimendi was a great signing,' Neville told The Gary Neville Podcast after the game. 'He's been a good player for Arsenal, but right now I was expecting that this would be where Zubimendi would be the player. Who's going to be the difference player? I thought (Viktor) Gyokeres would get the goals for them in these big moments and get to 2-0. His lack of quality at the end was poor on that counter attack. He's got to do better than that.'
Neville also hinted at a tactical problem within Arsenal's midfield, which saw them only have 45 per cent of possession and struggle against Sandro Tonali, Bruno Guimaraes and Joe Willock.
'(Martin) Odegaard does it better,' Neville added. 'Odegaard went deeper (today), but the problem is when Odegaard goes deeper, (Declan) Rice then goes deeper and Zubimendi is already deep. Then you've got three players, or certainly two in deep areas. You can't have that. You want them to be rotating with each other, and you want one back there to link play with the defence and the full-backs. It felt to me today that Zubimendi, Rice and Odegaard got outplayed by that Newcastle midfield. It was 55 per cent possession to Newcastle, 45 per cent to Arsenal... surprising, very surprising.'
Neville continued: 'But not surprising in the sense in how I saw that Newcastle midfield play. They were far better than the Arsenal midfield. So a bit of thinking for Mikel Arteta to do in terms of his midfield, how they can control games, show authority, keep the rhythm of the passing.'
Neville's criticism of the Spaniard, who was close to joining Liverpool in 2024, comes after his fellow pundit Jamie Carragher recently shared similar thoughts. Speaking after Arsenal's 2-1 defeat by Bournemouth earlier this month, Carragher claimed Zubimendi was 'really struggling right now' and 'having a tough time in midfield'.
Zubimendi has made 50 appearances across all competitions this season and started 33 of the Gunners' 34 Premier League games. Arteta's side are back in action on Wednesday when they travel to Atletico Madrid in the first leg of their Champions League semi-final tie, before they host Fulham next Saturday.
