Former Sky Sports presenter Jeff Stelling has revealed that he turned off the Arsenal match against Crystal Palace as it “was like watching paint dry”.

Eberechi Eze scored the only goal of the game against his former side as the Gunners beat London rivals Crystal Palace 1-0 on Sunday.

In a month, Arsenalhave gone from trailing defending champions Liverpool by five points to sitting top of the tableand seven points ahead of Arne Slot’s side.

There has been some criticism aimed at Arsenal with most of their goals so far this season coming from set-pieces with the Gunners struggling to score from open play.

And Stelling is their latest critic with the talkSPORT presenter insisting he had to switch over to Aston Villa versus Manchester City after watching the start of the Arsenal match against Palace.

Stelling told talkSPORTof Arsenal: “They can’t keep relying on set-plays, they just can’t.

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“I love some of the Arsenal players. I love Saka, I love Odegaard, I love Eze. But please, please be just a bit more expansive.

“I mean watching Arsenal against Palace was like watching paint dry. It was purgatory.

“I started watching that match, and I had enough of it before they had a shot. I’d turned over by then, to watch?Aston Villa?vs?Man City, which was a much better game.”

Respected Crystal Palace podcaster?HLTCO quoted a clip of Stelling’s comments and insisted Arsenal can’t win.

HLTCO wrote on X:?‘Arsenal have spent the last few years under Arteta being called bottlers and bridesmaids, now they’re top by 4 points, are perfect in the UCL and have conceded 3 goals in 13 games in all comps and they’re getting stick for being boring. If they were 4th having let in 16 goals, they’d get dug out for not learning how to win games and titles.’

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After hearing Stelling make his point about Arsenal, Danny Murphy hit back: “Let me interject there because I like Jeff and no disrespect but it’s a laymen’s view.

“I watched the game and Crystal Palace are arguably as well-organised as any team in the Premier League defensively. They’re shape is really good.

“If you think you can just click your fingers and start scoring three or four and make loads of chances against Palace, it’s not going to happen, they don’t set up like that.

“You can go out with the intention of playing attractive football but Palace dictate how you play with their shape. You have to be patient, wait for your openings and that’s what they did and got the goal.

“It’s a bit naive and idealistic to think because you’re a big club and you’re playing a so-called lesser team you can just go out and play this creative, wonderful football.

“The Arsenal full-backs fly forward so they’re not overly pragmatic. They’ve just got to a level now when teams want to squeeze them and drop off.

“There’s nothing wrong with Jeff saying he doesn’t like watching it but the reality is we’ve been spoiled with Liverpool and Man City.”