What Gary Neville said about Arsenal fans following embarrassing defeat to Crystal Palace

The former Manchester United captain Gary Neville took to Twitter to poke fun at Arsenal fans after the Gunners suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of Crystal Palace last night (Monday 4 April 2022).

Patrick Vieira’s side secured a 3-0 win thanks to goals from Jean-Philippe Mateta, Jordan Ayew and Wilfried Zaha.

Arsenal have been fighting with Tottenham Hotspur, West Ham and Manchester United for the fourth, fifth and sixth places in the Premier League and while Arsenal have been looking the more likely to take that final Champions League spot, last night was a blow and gave Spurs a big boost.

Arsenal still have one game in hand over their north London rivals and will need to ensure they have the upper hand when they take on Brighton at home on Saturday 9 April if they are to ensure a Champions League spot next season.

What did Mikel Arteta say after the match?

Speaking to the press afterwards, the Spaniard said: “Congratulations first of all to Crystal Palace for winning the match and the way they performed, but we weren’t at the races today especially in the first half.

“We were late to every ball, we were soft in the duels and we didn’t earn the right to play.

“When we did a little bit we were sloppy on the ball and we didn’t have any dominance, any sequences of play where we could take some control of the game and we conceded two poor goals.

“Overall it’s unacceptable, we put our hands up, apologise, and regroup. Tomorrow is a new day and a new opportunity to prepare the group against Brighton.”

What has Gary Neville said?

Neville recently spoke out on his views that Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta may do well to leave the club at the end of the season.

Speaking at a Sky Bet event, Neville said: “My concern is if Arsenal finish fourth this season - which, to be fair, I think is 50/50, I still think there’s a long way to go in that race - but if they finish fourth, that’s in some way as good as it gets.

“...but he gets to fourth and if he was really hard about it, he’d probably say ‘right that’s the best I can do there, I’m going now and getting my next job.’”

After Monday night’s defeat to Crystal Palace, Neville then took to twitter to say “Not so many Arsenal fans on my timeline tonight.”

What’s next for Arsenal?

There is still plenty of football left to be played before the end of the season. Arsenal still have nine Premier League games set up before their fate is decided.

Arsenal will hope that the regrouping of which he spoke will be in effect as they take on Brighton at the Emirates on Saturday.

Brighton have lost four out of five of their last matches, drawing their last fixture which came against Norwich City on Saturday 2 April.

This fixture could provide the Gunners with the much-needed three points before they face Southampton, Chelsea, Man United and Tottenham in the upcoming weeks.