Jermain Defoe singles out Arsenal star after Brentford draw: ‘Not good enough’

Jermain Defoe singled out Eberechi Eze for criticism after Arsenal’s 1-1 draw with Brentford on Thursday evening.

Arsenal’s lead over Manchester City at the top of the Premier League is now four points after Noni Madueke’s second-half header was cancelled out by Keane Lewis-Potter to secure a draw for Brentford at the Gtech Community Stadium.

Eze, meanwhile, struggled to make an impact against Brentford and Arsenal’s £67.5 million summer signing was substituted at half-time for Martin Odegaard.

The England international has been unable to secure a regular starting role under Mikel Arteta since arriving from Crystal Palace and Defoe believes the 27-year-old is ‘playing with the handbrake on’.

When asked if he felt that it was an uncharacteristic performance from Arsenal, Defoe told Premier League Productions: ‘I think so, yeah. I think it’s the pressure.

‘But saying that, it’s a difficult place to go, you know what you’re getting when you go to Brentford. It’s not going to be easy but you have to try to make it easy.

‘You have to cut out individual mistakes, in terms of the concentration levels they have to be high. You have to limit them of chances, they [Arsenal] didn’t do that really, I thought Brentford were better in the second half, I thought Arsenal wasted the first half.

‘Eze was not good enough. Although I still feel like he’s playing with the handbrake on. I know he hasn’t played games and probably is not match fit, but you still expect a little bit more.

‘But they [Arsenal] were different tonight, and I think that’s a mentality thing.’

Meanwhile, former Arsenal forward Theo Walcott believes Arteta will be ‘unhappy’ with several players in his squad for their display against Brentford.

‘I felt like with Man City getting the points the day before, there’s always that pressure of, ‘we need to do the job’,’ Walcott said.

‘It’s still in their hands. They have plenty of games to make up the points, of course. Everyone will look at that game when they play each other.

‘He [Arteta] will not be happy, he will not be happy with that. He will be unhappy with a lot of players as well tonight because they were indifferent.’

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