Gary Neville says Mikel Arteta is influencing Arsenal fans to claim referees are ‘corrupt’

Manchester United legend Gary Neville has criticised Mikel Arteta for fanning the flames and influencing Arsenal supporters to throw accusations of corruption at Premier League officials.

Riccardo Calafiori scored the only goal of the game as Arsenal edged past Wolves in a 1-0 victory last weekend, but the scoreline alone does not paint the full picture of the drama and controversy that played out at Molineux.

As Wolves broke with pace from deep inside the Gunners’ half towards the end of the first period, Matt Doherty was brought down by Myles Lewis-Skelly for what appeared, to many, to be a bookable offence on initial viewing.

But the Arsenal youngster was left visibly stunned as referee Michael Oliver instead brandished a red card from his pocket – a decision that was upheld by video assistant referee Darren England.

While the visitors would go on to seal all three points, after Wolves were also reduced to ten men, Arteta told reporters he was still ‘absolutely fuming’ with Lewis-Skelly’s sending off in the immediate aftermath.

However, the 18-year-old’s three-match ban has since been overturned, which will come as a huge relief to the Arsenal boss ahead of his side’s encounter with champions Manchester City this weekend.

The red card, Arsenal’s fourth of the Premier League campaign, led to wild accusations of corruption from some corners of Arsenal’s fanbase and police are now investigating ‘abhorrent attacks’ on Oliver and his family.

‘They [Arsenal fans] use language like corruption, which means they think he’s getting paid and bought off – which is obviously not the case,’ ex-United defender Neville said on the latest episode of The Overlap.

‘We [at Manchester United] lived in a club which created a siege mentality about the referees.

‘Arsenal are doing a bit of that as well – there’s no doubt that what Arsenal do is inflame the situation after the game rather than calm it down, they’ve done that for 12 months – but we can’t say that’s wrong having played in the dressing room that we did.

‘The difference is now with social media, when we were playing back in the day and doing similar things with referees, we weren’t inflaming what would be a cause of corruption on social media.

‘Now you have a sway of Arsenal’s anger, which comes from the players and from Mikel Arteta, and prominent fans.

‘You now have a social media wave now which goes towards [allegations of] corruption and cheating. In our day, we couldn’t have that much influence – everyone was at home without a phone, and didn’t have Twitter.’

A small section of Arsenal fans have called for Oliver to be removed from all of the club’s future matches, which Neville finds absurd.

‘I hate the idea of a referee being taken off a game,’ the former England right-back added.

‘He [Michael Oliver] is the best referee in the country, and the idea that he would go into that game on Sunday and be swayed towards Manchester City – he’s not going to do that, he’s a professional.’

Speaking on It’s Called Soccer, the US edition of The Overlap, Neville argued that Arsenal supporters had become ‘entitled’ in recent years with Arteta at the helm.

On Lewis-Skelly’s sending off, Neville said: ‘I just thought it was a cynical attempt to break up play like you see many times, classic yellow card, you move on and the rest of the game occurs where you know the player is on a yellow card.

‘We see it sometimes, whether it’s a little trip, whether it’s a pull back of the shirt, whether it’s a wrapping of of the arm around the body… classic stopping of a counter-attack, for me, and it was a yellow card.

‘I don’t think it was the worst decision I’ve ever seen in the world.

‘One thing I will see is and, to be fair, I’m not bothered because Arsenal fans are not great fans of me anyway, but I think they’ve become so entitled.

‘Honestly, they were playing against Wolves. Wolves have had more bad decisions against them in the last 15 months than any other club in the country it feels like. They had some shockers against them last season.

‘I just feel like every time Arsenal have a decision against them and it was a bad decision, but I feel like the exaggeration in the response… maybe it was the same with Manchester United back in the day and that’s why people didn’t like us and maybe that’s what Arsenal are creating now, that siege mentality and Mikel Arteta likes that.

‘But I can see why people didn’t like us back in the day in relation to referees because they felt like that about how we reacted and the same with this Arsenal team.

‘There is a definite exaggeration from Arsenal and their cohort of people in their sphere. Every time they have a decision against them it’s like the end of the world!’

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