Thierry Henry has insisted that Arsenal have made “progress” under Mikel Arteta, but they are lacking “consistency” at the moment.
Arteta was appointed as the new Gunners boss in December 2019 as he took over from Unai Emery.
The former Man City assistant enjoyed a successful start to life as a manager. They finished the Premier League season strongly and they won the FA Cup for the fourteenth time.
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His first full season has been tougher for Arteta, though. Arsenal currently sit tenth in the league after 28 games. They have won 12 games this term, but they have also lost eleven times.
The Gunners picked up one of the most important wins of Arteta’s tenure so far on Sunday. Martin Odegaard and Alexandre Lacazette scored as they beat their North London rivals Tottenham 2-1.
Speaking during Monday Night Football, as cited by The Daily Star, Henry suggested that the FA Cup win “bought” Arteta more time:
“First and foremost, I would say yes [there is progress], in a way, because I think Mikel bought himself some time by winning the FA Cup last year.
“I know people will tell me, ‘yes, that’s last year’, but the way he won it and the team he won it against, I think brought him some time with the Arsenal fans and with the team because at the end of the day you have something to show at the end of the season.
“Now, what I think the team is lacking is consistency. I know people always use the word consistency, it’s a big word, but this is what they need to do.
“I sometimes put it down to their games. Sometimes I watch the first half of Arsenal, it seems like they don’t believe that they can win.
“Then when they’re in a situation where they need to come back and have a go, it looks like, why didn’t you start like that?
“Yesterday, you could see they wanted to win the game, I think that Tottenham also made it a tiny bit easier for them on the day.
“But I can see a progress, now it needs to move on to consistency, that’s going to be very key.”
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