Emmanuel Petit won the domestic Double under Wenger in his first season at Arsenal, and had previously played for Le Prof at Monaco. He also won the Euros and the World Cup with France and has worked as a football analyst on French TV.
The Arsenal team he played with had players like Tony Adams, Ray Parlour, Martin Keown, Dennis Bergkamp and Patrick Vieira in there fighting for every ball, and he bemoans the ‘character and quality’ of the current crop of players in the Arsenal squad.
Petit told SunSport: “I don’t recognise this club anymore, I don’t see the Arsenal blood on the pitch.
“It’s not the question of money because Arsenal have the power to put £70million on a player if they want to.
“It’s a question of profile – who do you want for your team in terms of character and quality?
“What are Arsenal doing in the transfer market? I don’t understand it. They spend money – a lot of money sometimes – but on the wrong player.”
“To be honest, I’m not really convinced – for four, five, six years now – with 60 per cent of the team.
“This is a turning point for Arsenal, they are at the end of the world. They need to take the right direction or else they’ll drop, drop and drop again and it’ll be more difficult for them to attract players.”
After yesterday’s news about Buendia, it looks like Arsenal are already having trouble attracting quality players, but with a long way ahead in the transfer market, Arsenal fans need to be patient and see what Arteta and Edu can sort out.
But one thing Petit can be happy about is the amount of youngsters in the squad like Saka, Smith-Rowe and Willock, amongst others, who have been brought through the Academy and have Arsenal blood in their veins.
Let’s hope this is a positive turning point, and not a negative one, eh?