Neville says Arteta paid the price in January for signing Arsenal didn't want

Gary Neville reckons Mikel Arteta is regretting Arsenal’s decision to sign Raheem Sterling on loan last summer because it made it more difficult to get a January transfer for a new forward over the line.

Despite having four key attackers out with injury, Arteta has chosen to use midfielder Mikel Merino as an unorthodox focal point of his attack in the past two weeks with Sterling remaining on the bench.

And the England international, whose parent club remains Chelsea, has contributed just a single league assist and no goals. That leaves Neville thinking that the club did not want to sign him in the first place.

”Do you know what I think they’ve done? In the last part of the summer transfer window, I’m not sure Arsenal wanted to sign Raheem Sterling," Neville said on The Overlap with Sky Bet.

“I’m not sure Arsenal, as a club, wanted him. I think Arteta’s thought Sterling can play in all the positions up top and has basically told the club to get him in as cover.

“I think that’s what he said. He can play across the frontline so Arteta has looked at him as his second or third striker.

“They’ve ended up backing him and I think that’s put them off doing another deal in January of the same ilk because they’re thinking we brought Sterling in and Arteta hasn’t really used him.”

After the Gunners dropped two more points against Nottingham Forest on Wednesday night, to leave them 13 behind runaway leaders Liverpool, Arteta’s focus is now shifting towards the Champions League round of 16 tie with PSV Eindhoven.

And asked whether their title hopes were over after the Forest stalemate, Arteta said: “It’s about what we can do.

“It was like this a week before, two weeks before, three months before. Today we dropped two points which is very painful, we have the Champions League, a beautiful competition in front of us.

”I’m very disappointed not to win, the standard was different to the previous game [a 1-0 defeat to West Ham ] with the energy and the willingness to make things happen.

“We dominated the game, apart from one experience in the second half and one or two giveaways which allowed them to run. Apart from that nothing.

“When we opened them up we lacked the quality in the final pass and delivery and be more efficient.”