Following Arsenal’s victory on penalties over Porto in the Champions League, Sergio Conceicao came out and accused Mikel Arteta of insulting members of his family.
That didn’t go down well, as you can imagine, and there appears to be no remorse from the Gunners manager, which wasn’t appreciated by Jérôme Rothen, who spoke about the incident on his show on RMC Sport.
The former footballer turned pundit had a lot to say about the Arsenal boss, and recalled that this isn’t the first time Arteta has done this, being prone to it as a player.
Rothen said: “Arteta went too far. You can love yourself, see yourself as pretty, think you’re the future great manager of the world, there’s nothing to worry about, but he was already a bit like that when he was a player. I had the opportunity to play against him. He liked himself even thought he wasn’t the best player in the world. He didn’t like being tickled, even though he sometimes said things that went far.
“As a manager, you have to set an example. You can be arrogant and annoyed, but then you end up insulting your opponent… Stop! That’s not possible! One day, he’ll be caught out and he won’t like it… It almost happened yesterday. Conceicao, who’s a fiery person, reacted very well, whereas Arteta was out of line. I don’t understand why he didn’t apologise. He’s going to say again that he didn’t say anything.”
Conceicao made it clear that the person the Arsenal manager had insulted had previously died, which is why he told the Spaniard to be careful.
On the pitch, Arsenal managed to overturn a 1-0 loss in Porto to take the game to extra time and eventually win the tie thanks to David Raya’s penalty exploits.
In the Premier League, the Gunners currently sit top of the table after 28 games on goal difference, tied with Liverpool, with Manchester City just one point behind the pair.
