Joe Cole has warned Myles Lewis-Skelly and the remainder of Arsenal’s squad that their ‘over-celebrating’ against Manchester City may come back to bite them in the longer term.
The Gunners thumped champions City 5-1 at a rapturous Emirates to tighten their grip on second place and go nine points clear of Pep Guardiola’s side within the Premier League table.
Thomas Partey, Lewis-Skelly, Kai Havertz and Ethan Nwaneri all hit the goal after Erling Haaland had cancelled out Martin Odegaard’s opener in what was a breathless second period in north London.
The heavyweight contest proved an exhilarating albeit bad-tempered affair, with players at one another’s throats from minute one following Haaland’s pointed ‘stay humble’ remark directed at Mikel Arteta in the edges’ previous meeting.
Haaland and Gabriel Magalhaes resumed their bitter rivalry, clashing from the primary whistle to the last, while Lewis-Skelly was seen imitating the Norwegian’s celebration after his strike gave Arsenal a two-goal cushion on the hour-mark.
Lewis-Skelly was one other of Haaland’s targets when two teams met back in September, with the City striker heard bellowing, ‘Who the f*** are you?’ within the teenager’s face during a heated scuffle.
‘The Arsenal players are available for loads of stick. Obviously, they prefer to rejoice once they win a game, they just like the needle,’ ex-Chelsea, West Ham and England winger Cole said on The Dressing Room Podcast.
‘That very much comes from Mikel Arteta on the touchline, that’s their personality, his staff, and that kind of filters this manner into the players.
‘Myles Lewis-Kelly, who I believe is good, I like his feistiness, his attitude. He looks like a top player.
‘But he’s done the Erling Haaland celebration! That’s cold. He knew what he was doing… that’s cold.’
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Cole enjoys Arsenal’s ‘feistiness’ under Arteta, though feels their celebrations have, at times, been excessive and so they could live to regret them down the road.
‘I do like that in regards to the Arsenal team, that they’re feisty and so they’re horrible and so they’re nasty,’ he added.
‘We were like that at Chelsea however the over-celebrating that they do… they’ve done it quite loads.
‘And I do know individuals are saying, “It’s good, it’s good, it’s good”, but I’m just pondering for them, it does [come back to haunt you].
‘Haaland has gone to bed in his oxygen chamber and all he can take into consideration is scoring against Arsenal.
‘He’s pondering, “I’m gonna smash Lewis-Kelly, I’m gonna do this, he’s gonna get it”, that’s what you do if you happen to over-celebrate.’
At his post-match press conference, Arteta revealed that he had spoken to his squad about when it was and wasn’t acceptable to rejoice in such a fashion.
Asked how he felt about Lewis-Skelly copying Haaland’s celebration, the Arsenal head coach told reporters: ‘Playing at home or away could be very, very different.
‘We speak about those things and we now have to grasp that every ground is different, their attitude, what they rejoice and what they don’t, is admittedly very different up north as well to here in London.
‘It’s a part of the context of the sport.’
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