Thierry Henry just can’t get his head around what some people are saying about Arsenal
Arsenal have seriously evolved as a football club over the past decade or so.
The Gunners have gone from being pretenders to contenders under Mikel Arteta, and after years of being seen as a bit of a ‘soft touch’ in the Premier League, Arsenal are now flexing their muscles both on and off the pitch.
Arsenal are now amongst the Premier League’s big spenders after years of being frugal, while, on the pitch, their style of play has changed to be much more physical and much more defensively sound.
That has led to a Premier League title, but, despite that success, there have still been a few mutterings of complaints.
Indeed, some claim that Arsenal are no longer fun to watch, and while there may be an element of truth to that, the real question is: Does it matter?
Speaking to RMC Sport, Thierry Henry has been discussing Arsenal’s style of play and recent criticisms, and he says he simply can’t understand why Arsenal would get criticised when they are winning.
Thierry Henry baffled by Arsenal criticisms
Henry was asked to speak about how Arsenal play and how they are criticised. The former striker was very honest in his verdict, stating that he doesn’t understand this debate at times, especially when Arsenal are winning games, and more importantly, winning titles.
“Let’s talk about Arsenal. Arsenal’s final against Paris Saint-Germain was heavily criticised – the way they played, but also throughout the first… well, not the first part of the season. Did those criticisms annoy you?” Henry was asked.
“No, it’s not that they annoyed me. It’s just that, at one point, it took Mikel three and a half, four years to become more or less competitive. Let’s put it that way.
“So, as I was saying earlier, it’s not easy. It’s not easy to build a team. But the directors believed in him, they gave him time, and in the end he showed that… well, he showed that he’s a good coach.
“Now, we were known for not being combative. At one point it was, ‘Oh, you can walk all over them, you can do whatever you want. They just play football,’ and Arsenal were basically… I don’t know what they were. That was the discussion whenever you talked about Arsenal.
“Then, at some point, you have to find a way to finish ahead of Liverpool and City. Okay?
“So the guy works, he tries to find a way to get ahead of City.
“Suddenly, we’re strong, we score from set pieces, it’s difficult to create chances against us, nobody can walk all over us, and so on. ‘Oh, but now they’re not nice to watch. I said, ‘Yeah, but hang on. Come on.’
It had been a long time since the team had won the championship, so at some point I was saying, ‘It doesn’t matter. We’ve been asking for this for I don’t know how long, find a way to win the championship.’
“Now the guy finds a way to win the championship, and people criticise them. Listen, I can understand the debate. But at some point, when you know that this is the way we play, we have to stop asking the same question, because this is how we play.
“At one point people asked me, ‘Were you surprised by Arsenal’s performance in the final?’ I said, ‘No. I wasn’t surprised.’ We do this all year. This is how we play.
“Maybe not all year, but against teams of that calibre, we’ve scored early. Even more so.
“It’s not malicious; it’s a way of operating, it’s a way of playing. I’ve seen teams win, win everything, playing like that. I’ve also seen teams win by playing differently. So at some point I just didn’t understand the debate anymore.
“If you watch our team play, generally speaking, away from home we’re solid. We don’t concede many. Well, this year things have changed a little. I think we still haven’t scored from a set piece. Now we’ve lost 3–0 to Brighton, and we’re not defending well.”
Thierry Henry is spot on
Henry is right here – criticism of Arsenal doesn’t make much sense. After years of being called soft or easy to play against under Arsene Wenger, Mikel Arteta has flipped the script, and somehow, that’s wrong too?
At this point, it’s hard to know what people want from Arsenal, or, perhaps they just want to complain no matter what.
At the end of the day, all that matters are results on the pitch, and if Arsenal continue to win titles playing in this way, there can’t be too many complaints.