Jamie Carragher questions if Mikel Arteta is ‘slowly morphing into Jose Mourinho’ after Liverpool draw

Jamie Carragher has questioned whether Mikel Arteta is turning into the next Jose Mourinho rather than another disciple of Pep Guardiola after Arsenal’s draw with Liverpool.

Leading 2-1 after Mikel Merino’s header, the Gunners took their foot off the gas in the second half and invited pressure from Liverpool at the Emirates.

Injuries to Gabriel and Jurrien Timber saw the hosts retreat further into their shells and that caution was punished in the 81st minute when Mohamed Salah slotted past David Raya to secure a point and maintain Arne Slot’s unbeaten away record as Liverpool boss.

Sunday’s performande marks the latest occasion of a growing trend where Arsenal have looked to protect their lead rather than continue attacking having gone ahead.

And Carragher believes that it shows Arteta is perhaps more similar to the defensively-minded Mourinho than Guardiola who is often cited as the Spaniard’s coaching inspiration having spent time as his assistant at Manchester City.

‘I’ve been thinking about this for a long time, proabbly going back to this fixture last year,’ he said on Sky Sports. ‘Because Mikel Arteta worked with Pep we all think he is a Pep Guardiola discpiple.

‘If you look at the two most successful maagers in the last 10-15 years you’ve got Pep on one end and Jose – almost equally successful – at the other end.

‘Mikel Arteta is slowly morphing into a Jose Mourinho type of manager and no one really thought that would happen. Today they were 2-1 up, pressing Liverpool, on top and playing really well but they retreated in the second half.

‘I know they had a couple of injuries at the back but they still got the midfield players and some attackers who you think you can get on the ball and go forward and try and take the sting out of the pressure you’re under.

‘But that instinct to protect comes from the manager but it happens too often.

‘I get what happened at City – I thought what they did was brilliant – but what they did here at Brighton, what they did against Bournemouth – the top teams when they go down to ten men, yeah, you are under pressure but you relieve it; you keep the ball a bit more and ou’re still a threat going orwward.

‘It feels like what Jose was like at the Nou Camp with Inter [in the 2010 Champions League]. This is not a criticism, this is an observation.

‘But this idea that Arsenal play great football and he is a Pep Guardiola man, he is not. Just look at the players going down today, the secrecy before the game about who was fit and who wasn’t. It’s all out of the Jose Mourinho playbook.’

Speaking after the game, Arteta admitted that his side needed to be braver in crucial moments to try and secure a much-needed victory.

‘We deserved to win the game,’ he told Sky Sports. ‘We were the better team. Learnings from both goals, second one is a transition moment we have to end up in final third. You can not give that away.

‘We were clear in what we had to do and the execution, determination and aggression with and without the ball was really good. A few moments where we should’ve put the ball in the net.

‘In the first phase we needed more courage to play. We created big opportunities.’

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