Gary Neville has heaped praise on Myles Lewis-Skelly following Arsenal’s 5-1 win over Manchester City, comparing the youngster to his former Manchester United team-mate Patrice Evra.
Lewis-Skelly, 18, has enjoying a meteoric rise to stardom this season, establishing himself as a first-team regular for his boyhood club, alongside Ethan Nwaneri, in the space of just six months.
Last weekend the versatile youngster produced arguably his finest performance yet as the Gunners swept past champions Manchester City at in front of a rapturous Emirates crowd.
While Erling Haaland cancelled out Martin Odegaard’s opener to drag the visitors back into the game, a flurry of second-half goals from Thomas Partey, Lewis-Skelly, Kai Havertz and Nwaneri sealed Arsenal an emphatic victory.
Lewis-Skelly’s 62nd-minute strike was his first in senior football and the teenager clearly enjoyed the moment, even imitating Haaland’s trademark celebration, seemingly in response to their clash in September.
The result put a nine-point gap between second-placed Arsenal and City in the Premier League table and Mikel Arteta’s men will look to pick up where they left off away to Leicester on Saturday.
‘Seeing Manchester City dismantled in that final half an hour and fall to pieces like that, I’ve never seen that happen to a Pep Guardiola team so dramatically, in such a short period of time,’ ex-Manchester United and England right-back Neville told the It’s Called Soccer podcast.
‘That was the moment of the week, there was so much happening in that game.
‘It was disappointing for 30 to 40 minutes and then it just came alive.
‘It became electric later on.’
In the days that have followed, Lewis-Skelly has faced some criticism for his choice of celebration, with the likes of Joe Cole and Jason Cundy warning the teen it could come back to bite him in the future.
Neville was less than impressed with Gabriel Magalhaes’ behaviour in north London, but felt Lewis-Skelly was well within his rights to celebrate how he saw fit.
‘It looked like it had been set up with the rest of the players in the squad, didn’t it? It looked like something that had been pre-planned and preprepared,’ Neville added.
‘I didn’t really notice it in commentary. It got mentioned to us that it was Haaland-like, the celebration, but I didn’t think anything of it at all really. That didn’t really bug me that much.
‘What definitely did bug me was the Gabriel and Haaland one where he screams in his face. I don’t think that’s called for.
‘Lewis-Skelly, for me, was okay. I don’t think that the Gabriel one was. I can’t really have a go at lads when they’re going for it, they’re passionate and they get carried away.
‘I get the fact that you may not want a young player to get carried away but I don’t think that was so much getting carried away.’
When Lewis-Skelly first broke into Arteta’s first-team, Neville likened the Hale End academy product to legendary ex- Arsenal and Chelsea full-back Ashley Cole.
But watching Lewis-Skelly’s display last weekend, he was reminded of Evra, his long-time team-mate at Old Trafford.
‘I just want to correct one thing. I said Ashley Cole on Sunday about Lewis-Skelly when he burst onto the scene,’ he continued.
‘But the style of play of Lewis-Skelly, in terms of how he runs with the ball, is exactly like Patrice Evra.
‘Patrice Evra used to get the ball on the half-turn and go past people. People would bang him and he’d ride the challenge, go past them and you would think: “How’s he done that?!”
‘I think when he dribbles with the ball and he passes and he works his way into those inside positions, Patrice Evra was the very best at that I’ve seen in terms of that underlap and being in those left channels, he was unbelievable at it.
‘When he’s on the ball he does remind me a lot of Patrice.’