Former Manchester City defender Danny Mills has bizarrely criticised the way Mikel Arteta manages Arsenal’s youth players.
This comes after City youngster Rico Lewis made Champions League history on Wednesday night by becoming the youngest player in history to score on his first start in the competition.
The 17-year-old broke Karim Benzema’s long-standing record after netting the equaliser in the Citizens’ 3-1 comeback win over Sevilla.
There was plenty of praise for the right-back after the game, including from Mills but the Sky Sports pundit decided to also take the opportunity to make a surprising dig at Arteta and Arsenal.
Mills compared Lewis’ situation to that of Gunners academy player Ethan Nwaneri who himself made history earlier this season by becoming the youngest player in Premier League history.
Nwaneri came on as a late substitute in the 3-0 win at Brentford aged just 15 years and 181 days.
He hasn’t made a senior appearance since with Arteta claiming that his debut was motivated in part by the absence of a number of Arsenal midfielders due to injury.
Nevertheless, Mills has labelled the record-breaking cameo as ‘pointless’ and claimed that Pep Guardiola handles youth players better than Arteta.
He said: ‘Rico Lewis magnificent for him to score. But what I like about what Pep does with the youngsters, he doesn’t throw them in too soon, he doesn’t throw youngsters in for the sake of it.
‘Think about what happened at Arsenal with Ethan Nwaneri. Got a minute of a game not played since.
‘Played one Premier League 2 game, one in the U21s, only four in the U18s and been involved in the U17s.
‘So, what was the point of that? If you get into this Manchester City side you deserve it.’
It perhaps should be noted that City’s clash with Sevilla was a dead rubber game with Guardiola’s side already qualified for last-16 as group leaders, and as such the manager gave several youngsters and fringe players like Lewis rare starts.
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