3 min readUpdated: Mar 13, 2026 07:30 PM IST
Former Chelsea player Jon Obi Mikel was the latest to criticize league leaders Arsenal for their playing style, branding it illegal. The Gunners are currently sitting atop the Premier League table with a 7-point gap with second-placed Manchester City.
“When I watch Arsenal play right now, they depend solely, solely on corner kicks. You have spent almost a billion, Mikel Arteta and you’re telling me the only way you can win games is through corner kicks? It’s ridiculous. The only reason why the Arsenal fans are not complaining is because they’re top of the league. The creativity that they have, the potentials that they have, it’s all gone out of the window. We don’t see them anymore,” Mikel said on talkSPORT.
“What they do during set-pieces, for me, it’s illegal. First of all, they’re impeding the goalkeeper and now they start holding players. When you hold a play, when you impede a player from jumping, I watched the game against Chelsea when they played against us. Declan Rice was grabbing, I don’t know who’s, the left back, what’s his name? He was holding him so he couldn’t jump. And for me, yeah, and for me, how can the referee not see that? Even if the ball goes in, how can the VAR not see that? And for me, the PGMOL, well, they need to come out and they need to straight away, they need to stop this because if they don’t stop this, the whole bunch of teams are gonna start doing it,” he added.
“And for me, that’s illegal. So that is what I mean, that Arsenal are trying to cheat their way to winning the Premier League. They’re trying to cheat their way to winning the Premier League. That’s a team that is desperate of winning the Premier League, because they know that they haven’t won the Premier League for the last 22 years, 23 years. And now they’re so desperate, they want to cheat their way through it,” the former Premier League winning said.
In the Champions League, Kai Havertz returned to haunt Bayer Leverkusen and seal a late draw for Arsenal vs Bayer Leverkusen earlier in the week.
The Germany international struck an 89th-minute penalty against the team where he started his career and leveled the round-of-16 first leg tie at BayArena.
“I know the stadium well and have taken many penalties from this spot,” said Havertz, who left Leverkusen for Chelsea in a $95 million deal in 2020.
Story continues below this ad
Premier League leading Arsenal fell behind on Robert Andrich’s goal just after halftime. But Malik Tillman fouled Noni Madueke in the box, and Havertz fired low past Janis Blaswich from the spot.
© IE Online Media Services Pvt Ltd
