Alan Shearer has accused Arsenal of lacking the mentality to compete for major honours.
The Gunners finished the Premier League season with a flourish on Sunday, thrashing relegated Aston Villa to leapfrog Tottenham into second place .
But Shearer feels that Arsene Wenger’s men only ever come to the party when there is no silverware at stake.
“Like I said last year and the year before that, they’ve got ability but they lack heart and they lack a tough mentality,” the former England striker said on Match of the Day.
“They’re experts at winning matches when the pressure’s off and the title’s gone.”
Danny Murphy, meanwhile, had his say on Olivier Giroud, who netted a hat- trick at the Emirates. In the eyes of the former Liverpool midfielder, the Frenchman is a quality player, but does not score enough to lead Arsenal to the title.
“I think he’s a good player,” said Murphy. ‘Somebody who has lots of good attributes as we saw today with the hat-trick. Ultimately, he doesn’t get enough goals to be in a side that wins the Premier League.
“He puts himself about, he’s good in the air. When [Danny] Welbeck was fit recently, he was playing ahead of him for a reason. If he’s not first choice, that says it all really. Today, it was a fantastic hat-trick although it was against Aston Villa without being too disrespectful.
“Every time a team wins the league, 99 per cent of the time your striker will get you 20 goals and Arsenal don’t have one of those. You look at Vardy this year, Aguero in years gone by, Costa for Chelsea, Harry Kane’s got the golden boot.
“Arsenal fans have been saying for a long time, they need a top-class striker. The question is where can you get him from and how much will it cost?”
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