‘It’s absolutely horrible’: Pundit says 23-year-old Arsenal player has completely the wrong mentality

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Steve Nicol has not held back in his criticism of Jakub Kiwior after the Arsenal defender explained why he stayed down as Brighton scored their opening goal at the Emirates on Sunday.

Nicol was speaking to ESPN after Arsenal saw their Premier League title hopes largely go up in smoke. And it was quite staggering just how spectacularly it fell apart against the Seagulls.

Roberto De Zerbi’s men scored three times after the break to stun the Emirates.

Nicol criticises Jakub Kawior after Arsenal defeat

The opening goal came from Julio Enciso, who found the back of the net from close range. Arsenal felt aggrieved after Jakub Kiwior went down inside the area after being stepped on. That allowed Enciso to find himself in loads of space to score.

Kiwior explained afterwards that he lost his boot and was hoping that the referee would give a foul. But the goal was allowed to stand. And Nicol has now suggested that the Poland international has potentially made the situation worse with his attempted explanation.

“Your mentality has to be: ‘I don’t care if my leg’s just fallen off, where’s the ball? How can I stop it going in the net?’ With this guy’s answer, it’s absolutely horrible. His mentality is certainly not in the right place,” he told ESPN.

Centre-back was poor – but should have got a free-kick

In the same video, former Chelsea defender Frank Leboeuf suggested that Kiwior should have also stayed on his feet. However, he insisted that a foul should have been given afterwards.

And that is probably a fair assessment. With that, you can probably have a little sympathy for Kiwior.

Players no longer gets decisions go their way unless they go down – even if they have been genuinely fouled. How many players have been tripped inside the penalty area but not been awarded a penalty because they tried to stay on their feet?

Had Gabriel Jesus, for example, not gone down after being clipped on the knee by Luke Ayling in their win over Leeds last month, the referee would not have given anything. And that was a terrible attempt at a challenge from the right-back.

Had Kiwior stayed on his feet, he would have stood no chance of winning the free-kick. He must have felt that the decision would have been an easy one to take that risk.

Obviously, he did not get the decision anyway. And he is now receiving plenty of criticism for that.

But the two things can both be true that it was probably a free-kick, as well as a really poor decision from Kiwior to abandon his defensive duties in that moment.