Antonio Conte hits back at Mikel Arteta for complaining about Arsenal fixture pile-up as Steven Gerrard says Premier League schedule is nothing compared to what he saw at Rangers

Antonio Conte has hit back at Mikel Arteta’s concerns regarding a fixture pile-up in the Premier League.

The Arsenal head coach has been vocal about the run of matches facing the Gunners in the coming weeks, sarcastically saying ‘thankyou to the Premier League’.

The Gunners boos also expressed concern over when the rearranged North London derby between Tottenham and Arsenal will take place.

Arteta’s side were due to travel to the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on January 16 but a series of positive COVID tests saw the match postponed.

With no new date yet arranged, the Spaniard believes that the way the fixture list is piling up is ‘not fair’, something that his counterpart Conte took exception to.

Interrupting a question about Arteta’s comments, Conte said: “I only want Arteta to remember the game postponed. Tottenham – Arsenal okay? If we speak about unfair. I stop.

“In general, I think my answer is enough. Okay, yeah, it’s enough. If someone wants to speak about fair or unfair. We postponed the game, Tottenham-Arsenal, if you remember. I don’t.

“I don’t forget this, and I think that it’s not right to speak about fair or unfair.”

Arteta’s comments also included criticism of of the fact that his side are due to face Aston Villa on Saturday lunchtime after only facing Liverpool at the Emirates Stadium on Wednesday night.

He explained: “I heard some comments about when you are in Europe, that is nothing new, that is nothing new to me, but I am not talking about Europe, I am talking about the Premier League and how we schedule the games in the Premier League.

“The first thing is to protect the players and we have mentioned that many times, please can we avoid the Wednesday night and the Saturday morning and travelling?”

But while Villa boss Steven Gerrard was respectful in his response to Arteta, he was keen to emphasise that a heavy fixture list was nothing new.

Gerrard explained: “You’ve got to respect what every manager says in their own position.

“They’ve obviously had a challenging week but you’re talking to someone who has been up at Rangers who play over 60 games.

“Sky or BT Sport, whoever it is, put you on at times that suit them and you have to get on with it and accept it.

“Every manager can only speak and have an opinion about their own situation, but I think it’s only going to get worse for him if they qualify for Europe because the games will come even thicker and even faster. That’s the way it is at this level.”