David Seaman has become the latest former Gunner to discuss the club and says they have a problem with consistency.
Arsenal reached a new low last season after they finished the campaign outside the European places and wouldn’t play continental football for the first time in about 25 years.
Mikel Arteta became the club’s manager in 2019 and the Spaniard has continued to lead them through an important rebuilding stage.
The Spaniard started his reign very well and he won the FA Cup and the Community Shield within the first year.
However, Seaman played down those achievements as “bonuses” because that season wasn’t even great in the first place.
He says he feels bad for Arteta because the Spaniard is yet to assemble his own squad and has been forced to do a job with the players that other managers before him signed.
However, he insists that he has to get results for the team with the resources available to him.
‘When you look at last season, finishing eighth, it’s very disappointing,’ Seaman says via Mail Sport.
‘It’s something that needs to be changed. I feel a little bit sorry for (Mikel) Arteta because he’s not got his own team yet, or his own squad.
‘He’s inherited players from previous managers. But he’s got to coach those around him to get the best out of them. We saw with winning the FA Cup and then the Community Shield, I would call those bonuses, because that season wasn’t very good either. It’s the consistency that’s the problem.
‘All of a sudden we beat Liverpool and Chelsea, then we lost to lower teams. That’s his biggest problem. Do we need players? Yes we do. I still feel that the spine of the team isn’t strong enough.
‘They need a good defender and midfield player. We need a more consistent attacking player. In (Pierre-Emerick) Aubameyang, we do have a quality player. Last season, with all the different problems that he had, he wasn’t consistent enough. But you know the quality he’s got, so you don’t really change that.
‘(Thomas) Partey in midfield has done well, I like what I see with him. I want to see a more consistent season from him and hopefully that’s going to happen next year.’