Manchester United legend, Gary Neville has urged the Arsenal board to make two signings for their manager, Mikel Arteta amid the Premier League title race.
Neville believes Arsenal have a golden opportunity to win the Premier League this season for the first time in 19 years, but the club’s hierarchy must back Arteta in the January transfer window if they are to do so.
The former defender said this after Arsenal played a 0-0 draw against Newcastle United on Tuesday night, which saw Arteta make just one substitution as he brought in Takehiro Tomiyasu on for Ben White in a game that saw the Gunners manage just four shots on goal.
And Neville feels Arsenal had ‘run out of ideas’, adding that Arteta had no real firepower amongst his substitutes bench to change the game at the Emirates Stadium.
He noted that two more signings this month could be the crucial difference between Arsenal winning and losing the Premier League title race.
“The interesting thing is Vieira – I think he cost £34million,” Neville told Sky Sports.
“Mikel Arteta clearly felt that if he were to bring him on, he would weaken the team tonight as they tried to win the game. So he has not got faith in his bench to improve the team that’s out there.
“They didn’t have another plan off the bench.
“What they did tonight would’ve worked well against 10 to 15 teams in the league. They didn’t do badly tonight. Arsenal ran out of ideas in this game, but I do think Arteta should’ve something more to call upon on the bench, and they should go into the transfer market.
“They are in a position where they can win the league here, so when are they going to be in this position again? Can the board and owners find those two players that will turn that from one into three points?
“There are 21 games still to go. They’ll have a lot more of those where they are going to be up against it – they might be one down and need two goals, so yeah, they need something off the bench.”