Arsenal head coach Mikel Arteta has reacted to Graeme Souness brutally hitting out at Gunners winger Bukayo Saka, having labelled him “a cheat”.

Saka is yet to hit his top form at the start of this campaign, and Souness has now hit out at the winger over his apparent play-acting.

Earlier this week, Souness slammed Saka for being guilty of “diving all over the place” for Arsenal.

“Your man Saka dives all over the place. I don’t want to hear about him. The minute he looks like losing possession, he’s down,” Souness said on Piers Morgan’s Uncensored show.

“He simulates a foul. Anyone who simulates a foul in my book would be a cheat.

“He dives when he should be staying on his feet. He’s not alone. So Saka gets tackled, he screams as he’s going down.

“The referee thinks there’s nothing in that but wait a minute, he’s stayed down. And then worse than that, everyone in the immediate area – all Arsenal players – put their hands up and scream foul.

“The referee at that point panics and blows his whistle when it wasn’t a foul – his first instinct was the right one.

“But he blows a foul because he’s thinking, wait a minute, something I’m not understanding here.

“Simulation is a form of cheating, yes. But it’s all over football today.

“If you asked 100 people what is it you dislike about the modern game, 50 per cent would say simulation, another 50 per cent would say VAR.”

“We are open to opinions…”

Arteta was asked about Souness’ comments in his press conference on Tuesday night.

On Souness’ comments, Arteta told reporters: “I haven’t heard it and I’m not going to make any comments about opinions.”

Arteta was then asked whether such claims could influence referees. To which he continued: “I don’t know. We are open to opinions. It’s part of our job. It’s part of our roles. And those opinions have to be respected.

“Especially if they are done in a respectful way. And we are here to prove that we belong to this level, to this stage, and we certainly always have the intention and the ambition to improve and do better. That’s it.”