Gary Neville expects Arsenal players to turn on ‘annoying’ Mikel Arteta coach

Gary Neville believes Arsenal players could turn on set-piece coach Nicolas Jover and says his touchline behaviour is ‘offensive’.

Jover has helped turn Arsenal into the most dangerous team in the Premier League from set-pieces but Neville believes he needs to ‘sit back’ and stop ‘overreaching his importance’.

Following Arsenal’s win over Manchester United last month, Neville described Jover – who Mikel Arteta poached from Manchester City in 2021 – as the ‘most annoying man in football’.

The ex-England defender launched another attack on Jover on the latest episode of Stick to Football, saying he is ‘offended’ by the 43-year-old.

‘I called him the most annoying man in football,’ Neville said. ‘Do you know something? I’m cementing my position, I’m doubling down.

‘It’s offending me every week. I’m going to say this really calmly, I think he’s overreaching his importance.

‘If a goalkeeper makes a good save, I don’t see the goalkeeping coach on the edge of the touchline. I don’t see the other coaches going up and getting the glory for it.

‘The manager is at the front, he can’t communicate from 50 yards away to players who know what they’re doing. I think he’s overreaching his importance, I genuinely believe that.

‘I see goalkeeper coaches and brilliant coaches who work on other aspects of the game, I don’t see them pointing to themselves and overreaching their importance.

‘That’s how I feel. I get he’s important and he’s doing a great job but I do genuinely think he needs to sit back a little bit.

‘I think the players will start to look at him as well and think, “hang on a minute, come on”.’ 

Responding to Neville’s rant, Arsenal legend Ian Wright said: ‘You’re being very, very harsh Gary.’

But former Liverpool defender Jamie Carragher agreed with Neville’s take, saying: I can’t disagree with it! I thought it was a bit harsh but I can’t really disagree.’ 

Arsenal have scored more set-piece goals than any other team in Europe’s top five leagues this season.

The Gunners lost back-to-back games last week – exiting the FA Cup before the fourth round and suffering a 2-0 defeat to Newcastle United in the first leg of their crucial Carabao Cup semi-final.

But Arteta’s side got back to winning ways in Wednesday’s north London derby, beating Tottenham 2-1 to cut the gap to Premier League leaders Liverpool to four points, though the Reds have a game in hand.

Following the north London derby victory, Arteta said: ‘The boys were outstanding today.

‘Less than 72 hours ago we played 120 minutes in another competition that we went out of – that is not easy psychologically. So the way we performed and played today was exceptional.

‘We made it harder for ourselves. I think we deserved to score at least one or two more but we had to suffer.

‘We showed that have the capacity to do that too. The attitude, the purpose and intensity that the players played with was really good.’

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