Are Arsenal too reliant on soccer's 'dark arts,' or is it just sour grapes?

• Multiple contributors

Nov 6, 2026, 06:02 AM ET

Arsenal's ascent to the top of the Premier League has been nothing short of brilliant, with Mikel Arteta -- whose only previous coaching experience was as an assistant for Pep Guardiola at Manchester City before taking the Arsenal job in December 2019 -- revamping a broken team, reshaping them around young attacking talent and slowly climbing the table.

Arteta's obsessive, meticulous methods took the club from eighth in his first season to three straight second-place finishes and then, at long last, a first Premier League title in over two decades when the Gunners claimed the trophy in 2025-26.

But now that the Gunners reached the top, how do they stay there? After fielding a ton of criticism last season for being too reliant on set pieces, to arguably being too cynical in 2026-27 so far, is there really a "problem" with their methods? Is there something unseemly about their antics, whether it's time-wasting or exaggerating fouls? Or is it just the ruthless execution of a champion?

"You can call it clever, or dirty," said City defender John Stones in September 2023 after a 2-2 draw with Arsenal at the Etihad.

Last weekend's 1-0 win at Liverpool was significant for being their first victory at Anfield in 14 years, but also for a missed VAR review when defender Jurriën Timber visibly pulled Alexander Isak back from a clear goal-scoring opportunity, as well as several lengthy stoppages at throw-ins, around fouls and free kicks.

ESPN reporters James Olley, Mark Ogden and Sam Tighe -- plus former Premier League defender Nedum Onuoha -- assess the criticism and whether it's justified or sour grapes.

Q1. We've criticized Arsenal in the past for being too soft/naive, and then they were "Set Piece FC" last season. Now, they've evolved again. But are they now too cynical in how they play?

James Olley: It is important to understand the journey Arsenal have been on with this. The Gunners were almost knocked out of the 2023-24 Champions League by FC Porto in the round of 16. They lost the first leg 1-0 at Estadio do Dragao in what was not far short of a scrap: the ball was in play for 50 minutes, there were 36 fouls and Arsenal didn't manage a shot on target.

Arteta faced questions on that February night as to whether his team needed to learn street-smarts, and his answers were revealing.

"There are ways to do it," he said. "It is the way you talk to them, showing them clips, training -- putting them through scenarios, pinching them a few times as well, learning from other players who do it really well and from teams who are masters at it. It's very important.

"That's a way of competing for a team. And you can tell that the best players in the world have the ability to take advantage, always."

They won the return leg against Porto and by September of the same year, Manchester City were complaining about Arsenal's use of "dark arts" during a 2-2 draw between the sides at Etihad Stadium. So the current perception of Arsenal as overtly cynical is nothing new. Arteta spent five years at Arsenal as a player during the period they were widely regarded as too soft; then, as manager, he has toughened a squad both physically and mentally to be the most robust in England.

Sam Tighe: For as long as I have watched football, players and teams have bent the rules, made the most of contact, wasted time when winning, tried to win spurious penalties and invited challenges to earn free kicks. Arsenal are no different to any of those sides.

History might suggest that these tactics are more commonly used by weaker or underdog teams, but it's not an exclusive club.

Nedum Onuoha: No, they're not too cynical. Speaking as an ex-player, I would love to play for this Arsenal side.

It's about winning. They don't play anti-football. It's not like they're grinding out 1-0 wins every week, because they have potential to score more and they have good attackers -- they've also got this physicality and a collective ability and willingness to all do the same thing. Their players all sense the game and there's never a split whether they need to speed the game up or slow it down. Whatever they need to do, they all do it. So I think the cynical side of things, given what they were like, is completely fine.

Mark Ogden: I think Arsenal certainly went beyond the line of acceptability during the closing weeks of last season when they were pursuing the Premier League title and Champions League. The sight of three players deliberately running the clock down at the taking of a throw-in around half time when 1-0 up against PSG in the Champions League final was a classic of example of their readiness to test the patience of the officials, opponents and fans. But I do accept that it's the nature of elite sport to push the boundaries at times and get away with whatever you can.

Arsenal do that and so do plenty of other teams, but they're just better at it than everybody else.

Nicol: Arsenal showed what it takes to be champions

Q2. Does the game have an issue with "dark arts" in general, or has VAR done a lot to get rid of those moments? Or is it on the referees to adjust?

Onuoha: No, I don't think VAR has gotten rid of those issues at all. I think people just do them in a different way because not every decision is based around a video review.

If we're going to be super cynical, you could say that the rules that came in this summer about countdowns from goal kicks and so on was designed because teams like Arsenal would slow it down. However, all that's done for Arsenal and other teams is manufactured a way to be very precise about how much time you waste. I've seen it myself; I saw it in the Community Shield, and I've seen it since.

When the game is in a position where Arsenal don't need to go any sort of tempo, they'll have a goal kick, and they'll stand there, and they'll look at the referee and they'll wait for the referee to start doing a countdown. But when the ref starts doing a countdown, they don't go on five, they don't go on four, they don't go on three, they'll go on two or one. So they've got a set block of time that they know that they can waste.

They're still playing within the rules, but it's all about perception as to whether it's dark arts or game management.

Tighe: People are annoyed with Arsenal goalkeeper David Raya now, but imagine how annoyed they'd be if the referees weren't literally counting down to force him to send his goal kicks out quickly? The end of Arsenal's win at Anfield was frantic, thanks in part because the Spaniard only had six seconds to get rid of the ball, creating an end-to-end sway.

I don't think VAR has done much to stop any of this because top players generally aren't stupid enough to commit red-card offences when there are dozens of cameras around, and VAR won't retrospectively get involved for anything less than a red-card offence.

Olley: They are called "dark arts" for a reason. A gentle shirt-pull here, some steady time-wasting there, a cheap free kick earned ... there isn't one indiscretion big enough to introduce a law that eliminates it all. The point is that these moments add up a material advantage, and that can be as simple as throwing off an opponent's rhythm or distracting them from the game they want to play. To some extent, Liverpool fell into this trap when losing to Arsenal at Anfield last weekend.

Some elements challenge the concept of fair play or the spirit in which the game should ideally be played. Feigning injury or exaggerating contact is generally unpalatable, but it isn't strictly punishable as these incidents are subjective. Diving and time-wasting obviously is, but Arsenal have proven very good at understanding the rules and bending them without breaking: just look how long they take at corners, or the "confusion" Raya often has at goal kicks.

But their set-piece effectiveness has dropped dramatically so far this season, and that is likely a combination of the rules tightening on grappling, as well as opposition analysts coming up with better solutions to combat Arsenal's gameplan. The referees have to be vigilant because nobody wants VAR intervening for every single questionable challenge.

Ogden: I don't think football has a problem with dark arts. VAR has cleaned up the game an awful lot in terms of cynical off-the-ball fouls and diving, but with so many officials having a different threshold for what should be penalized and what shouldn't, it is still a subjective issue.

Some referees will clamp down on grappling and blocking at corners -- another Arsenal tactic -- but others will be more tolerant.

Q3. Do you find it hard, as a neutral, to watch Arsenal when they engage in so much time wasting and other dark arts?

Tighe: It's incredibly frustrating to watch your team play against Arsenal; in part because they're excellent at football, and in part because they manipulate the energy in games better than anyone. Raya, Mikel Merino and Gabriel Magalhães' gamesmanship is elite tier, then the Gunners added Bruno Guimarães and Ezri Konsa over the summer -- two of the best players in the league at winning those soft, exasperating fouls every time.

I think there's a case to be made that Arsenal do not need to prove to anyone that they can defend a 1-0 lead for a long time quite so often, but ultimately, I don't have much of an issue with how they're succeeding.

Ogden: I actually like watching Arsenal when they are defending against a top team because they are so good at it; I don't mind Gabriel roughing up a center forward.

You also have to tip your hat to Arsenal's organization at set-pieces, but I really don't like the feigning injury -- Gabriel holding his head when pushed in the chest by Liverpool's Alexander Isak, for instance -- and the rolling on the floor of worst offenders, like Merino and Kai Havertz.

Arsenal players act like babies sometimes, and that's what I don't like to see.

Olley: I'm at more Arsenal games than most people, and there's no doubt they are often a difficult watch. This was perfectly understandable last season, and I defended their approach at every turn. They were battling the past perception outlined in question one and, on top of that, the weight of history arising from a 22-year gap to their last Premier League title. You win any way you can in those circumstances and play to your strengths, which is Arsenal's case was a resilient defense.

It is different this year. That weight has been lifted. They are now the champions and different things are expected of them.

Dynasties are usually created on the back of a more expansive style: Sir Alex Ferguson's Manchester United, Arsenal's own Invincibles, the best of Pep Guardiola's Manchester City, Paris Saint-Germain right now. There are times when you wish Arsenal would go in for the kill, but they are still so often content to protect what they have because, as Bukayo Saka once said himself, one goal is usually enough for them to win.

Onuoha: I find it hard to watch Arsenal as a neutral in the bigger games, because against teams that they should be beating, they don't need to do it.

In the bigger games against teams where it's more equally matched at times, it can be more pragmatic, especially when they take a lead. I don't think they're a team in those bigger games where if they have a 1-0 lead, it'll turn to 2-0, or 3-0, or 4-0. I think at times they're happy not to fully sit back, but to soak up pressure and change the way they play to maintain a result.

It's a "Band of Brothers" attitude and it comes from the manager. Arteta spent a long time playing for Everton, learning the value of togetherness and scrapping, and you can see that in his management style.

Q4. Jose Mourinho's Chelsea had a reputation for "going down for treatment" to kill an opponents' momentum; Pep Guardiola's City were notorious for "tactical fouls." So, is stretching the rules just what winners do?

Ogden: I have no issue here. The top teams are just winners and they will win by any means necessary.

Former Manchester United defender Phil Neville once admitted he "kicked Jose Antonio Reyes off the pitch" after being told by his manager Ferguson to constantly go in hard on the Arsenal player to put him off his game ... and it worked. Ferguson is rarely criticized for his teams stretching the rules, but that is an example of how United would do exactly that. His players were also told to put referees under pressure by vociferously questioning their decisions.

Arsenal are just the latest in a long line of winners who have unsavory elements to their game.

Tighe: That's it, isn't it? Successful teams find edges. Mourinho figured out when he won back-to-back titles from 2004-2006 then that if two players went down for treatment, neither would have to go off the pitch (a trick John Terry used liberally). The blatant professional fouls that Fernandinho, Raheem Sterling and Co. used to commit at Man City to deny promising counter attacks -- and without being given a yellow card -- would drive fans up the wall. The roughhouse set-pieces and gamesmanship Arsenal employ can be filed in the same category.

Perhaps, ultimately, it comes down to being jealous of success?

Onuoha: If you look at all the years Arsenal went without winning the title, there was never really a question about their talent, but there was something to be questioned about their mentality and what the manager was ready to accept and not accept. When Arteta first arrived, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang was late for some team meetings and Arteta stripped him of the captaincy, so he started to change the culture at that point. And now whatever the game needs, with the players that Arsenal have, they can adapt to it.

For somebody like Arteta, if he wants his team to play good football, they will. But if it's a terrible game where they're just fighting and don't have any shots but they win, he'll praise them after the match. It's not this critique of performance saying, "Well, it should be this or it should be that." For him, it's just winning.

Olley: Almost every club has a player like Gabriel, who is adored by Arsenal fans and irritates just about everyone else. Winners are never universally adored, and besides, all these marginal gains won't work if another team overwhelms them. It is on the rest to innovate as Arsenal have done, find ways to negate the edge they have.

The impressive thing is that Arsenal absolutely love the ugly stuff, the hard yards and the disciplined defending. It can perhaps border on the performative, but so many players celebrate a block or a successful tackle like they would a goal. They are the hardest-working team around these days.

These are the standards others must reach. Don't complain if your side doesn't.