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Sam Allardyce slams Unai Emery's 'stupid' tactics against Man City

Image: Sam Allardyce has criticised Arsenal's tactics against Manchester City

Unai Emery is attempting to implement a "stupid" style of play at Arsenal, according to Sam Allardyce.

The Gunners slipped to a 2-0 defeat to Manchester City in their opening league game on Sunday and throughout the match Emery's side surrendered possession while looking to play out from the back.

Petr Cech came close to scoring an own goal when attempting to play a ball across his own penalty area to Shkodran Mustafi, and Allardyce believes the blame lies with Emery.

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Arsenal 0-2 Man City

"It is the manager's fault," the former England boss told talkSPORT, when asked about Cech's performance.

"Don't ask somebody to do against Man City what you shouldn't do. You shouldn't play out like that against Manchester City.

"What do Manchester City do? They press, press, press so why do you try and play out when they press, press, press?

Unai Emery during Arsenal v Man City
Image: Unai Emery instructed his players to play out from the back against City

"Even the Arsenal crowd cheered when he [Cech] dropped one in the opposition's half.

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"We are getting obsessed with this stupid 'let's play out from the back, split the centre halves either side of the 18-yard box and go and play from there'… it's utter rubbish to play like that all of the time.

"When you're the best at it [like City] then you can do it."

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