Liverpool legend Jamie Redknapp has blasted Unai Emery’s substitution of Alex Iwobi in Arsenal’s 2-0 loss o Tottenham Hotspur in the quarterfinal of the League Cup on Wednesday night.
Iwobi almost pulled Arsenal level in the first-half after Son-Heung Min had given the visitors the lead after some horrific defending.
Tottenham stand-in keeper Paulo Gazzaniga pushed Iwobi’s shot onto the post, leaving the score 1-0 at half-time.
Talking in the Sky studio (Wednesday, 7pm), Redknapp heaped praise on Iwobi and called him Arsenal’s ‘main man’.
“I’ve been so impressed by Iwobi for Arsenal,” Redknapp said. “He’s been their main man.”
“Iwobi was brilliant tonight but he was the fall guy, with manager Unai Emery taking him off early in the second-half, replacing him with Alexandre Lacazette. Mauricio Pochettino made a substitution at the same time, bringing on Harry Kane for Lucas Moura and that was the decisive move of the night. Shortly after Iwobi had gone off, Kane found Dele Alli in aces of space through the middle. Alli finished with a beautiful chip to make the score 2-0 and despite Lacazette hitting the post not long after, that was enough to send Arsenal crashing out of the cup. Weirdly, not everyone agreed with Redknapp’s assessment of Iwobi, with plenty of fans laying into him on Twitter. We think that was unfair tonight. Arsenal played pretty well and on another night they could have taken the lead and gone 2-0 up. As it was, in a game of fine margins, Tottenham were flattered with the scoreline and progress to the semi-finals.
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