Neville believes Guardiola made a mistake in his line-up against Arsenal

Arsenal beat Manchester City 5-1, declaring their intention to challenge Liverpool for the Premier League title.

Gary Neville believes that Guardiola made mistakes in his lineup against Arsenal, which was one of the key reasons for Manchester City's complete collapse in the second half. In this game, Haaland once equalized the score after falling behind 0-1, but then Thomas Partey, Miles Lewis-Skelly, Havertz and Ethan Nwaneri scored successively, causing Manchester City to suffer the fourth defeat of the season in which they lost four goals or more, which is the worst record in Guardiola's coaching career.

Although Manchester City was missing several key players in this campaign, with Rodrigo, Ederson and Ruben Dias all absent due to injuries and De Bruyne sitting on the bench, Neville believes that Guardiola should be able to cope with these challenges better.

Neville said: "Now, as long as the opponent increases the intensity of the game, Manchester City will struggle. They really, really struggle. This team has lost its former vitality and the transition between offense and defense has become sluggish.

"I would have thought Guardiola would have coped better with Rodrygo's absence, but that hasn't been the case."

"If it was another manager, we would definitely question whether it was really appropriate to send B Silva and Kovacic to face a midfield combination of dynamic and technically outstanding players like Odegaard, Rice and Thomas?"

"Perhaps Guardiola should pile more players in the midfield and use the numerical advantage to make up for the quality disadvantage."

"He also played Foden on the right and Savinho on the left - but he barely stopped Gvardiol from getting forward. Omar Marmouche played well against Chelsea but couldn't find space behind Haaland in this game."

"So, I think Guardiola's starting selection today was indeed wrong."