Gary Neville backs Unai Emery’s early Arsenal approach on Monday Night Football after taking swipe at Sam Allardyce
The former Manchester United defender has branded Sam Allardyce's remarks "ignorant" for his criticism of Emery, despite the Spaniard losing his opening two games
GARY NEVILLE has become an unlikely ally of Unai Emery over the passing style he has introduced at Arsenal.
The former Manchester United defender has branded Sam Allardyce "ignorant" for his criticism of Emery, despite the Spaniard losing his opening two games as Gunners boss.
The Spaniard, 46, was on the end of familiar moans and groans as he attempted to implement passing style from back to front, with mixed results.
The North London club lost their first game of the season against Manchester City with several mistakes, before being beaten by Chelsea.
But Arsenal created several chances they should have scored at Stamford Bridge, on top of the ones that did find the net.
Allardyce fumed at Emery, saying: "What do Manchester City do? Press, press, press — so why do you try and play out [from the back]?"
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But Neville said: "I think it's ignorant to suggest he has to adapt.
"Unai Emery is coming into this football club and has had six weeks to work.
"Emery has been a coach for 10 years and has been successful.
"He has his idea. The players have to adapt to him. And he has to find out which players can adapt and which players can't for Arsenal in this transition they're going though.
"I expect in his first season there is going to be some pain for Arsenal in this transition they're going through."
Neville, 43, struggled during his brief stint at La Liga side Valencia in 2015-16 where he won just three of 16 league games.
And he was Roy Hodgson's assistant when England were humiliatingly knocked out of Euro 2016 by Iceland.
He added: "It's dangerous to adapt — I learned this during my time at Valencia, the biggest learning curve of my career.
"The minute I started to adapt and said 'knock it long' the players threw away the previous work I had done.
"You start to get confusion in the players' minds.
"He is only five or six weeks in.
"I saw Sam Allardyce saying 'you can't do this, you can't do that'.
"Unai Emery isn't trying to avoid relegation, he is trying to build a team to win a title, with a style.
"The last thing Emery should do is adapt, otherwise the players will walk all over him."
