Henry defends Arteta's style: 'Now they say it's not pretty'

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Thierry Henry has pushed back at the criticism of Mikel Arteta's football, arguing that the manager deserves respect for turning Arsenal from an easy opponent into champions of England.

Arsenal were in decline when Arteta arrived to replace Unai Emery, leaking goals and nowhere near the conversation for major honours. The appointment raised eyebrows at the time — Arteta had never managed a club on his own, having spent three years as Pep Guardiola's assistant at Manchester City.

Seven years on, the Gunners have ended a 22-year wait for the Premier League title and are regarded as one of the most feared sides in Europe. For Henry, that context is being lost in the debate about how the team gets there.

'We don't get walked all over'

Speaking via the Metro, Henry said: "At a certain point, you've got to get ahead of Liverpool and City, so the guy [Arteta] is working, he's trying to find a way to overtake City. Suddenly, we're tough, we dominate, it's hard to create chances against us, we don't get walked all over, but now they are saying they are not playing pretty."

The Frenchman's point is that the complaints have shifted. A team once accused of being soft is now accused of being functional — and Henry sees that as a sign of how far the baseline has moved under Arteta.

"For me, it had been a long time since the team won the league, so at some point, you have to find a way to actually win it," Henry added.

The PSG defeat and the bigger picture

Henry also defended Arsenal's approach in the Champions League final defeat to Paris Saint-Germain, arguing that the method was not malicious but simply a way of operating against elite opposition.

It is a familiar tension around this Arsenal side. The club's identity for a generation was built on the free-flowing football Henry himself embodied, and sections of the fanbase measure every performance against that memory. Arteta's version is built on control, set-piece threat and a defensive structure that few sides in Europe have managed to unpick.

Henry accepts the football may not always be attractive to watch. His argument is that results are the currency a manager is ultimately judged in, and that Arteta has delivered the one result Arsenal had chased for more than two decades.

Coming from a player whose own Arsenal years are the benchmark critics keep reaching for, the endorsement carries weight. The debate over style is unlikely to disappear, but the terms of it have clearly changed — and the next test is whether Arteta's methods can be translated into European success.