Mikel targeted Arsenal’s management of opponents during corners, describing them as "desperate" to end their 22-year title drought. "What they do during set-pieces, for me, it's illegal. First of all, they're impeding the goalkeeper and now they start holding players," Mikel continued. "When you hold a play, when you impede a player from jumping, I watched the game against Chelsea when they played against us. Declan Rice was grabbing, I don't know who's, the left back, what's his name [Jorrel Hato]?
"He was holding him so he couldn't jump. And for me, yeah, and for me, how can the referee not see that? Even if the ball goes in, how can the VAR not see that? And for me, the PGMOL, well, they need to come out and they need to straight away, they need to stop this because if they don't stop this, the whole bunch of teams are gonna start doing it.
"And for me, that's illegal. So that is what I mean, that Arsenal are trying to cheat their way to winning the Premier League. They're trying to cheat their way to winning the Premier League. That's a team that is desperate of winning the Premier League, because they know that they haven't won the Premier League for the last 22 years, 23 years. And now they're so desperate, they want to cheat their way through it."