Mikel Arteta's Arsenal process "will explode soon".
That is the view of Gunners legend and all-time leading scorer Thierry Henry who has delivered an exciting prediction regarding his former club following their 2-1 north London derby win over Tottenham Hotspur.
Whilst the Frenchman accepts that the current Arsenal squad should be better than their 10th-place position in the Premier League table, he has taken encouragement from what Arteta is building at the Emirates Stadium.
Henry noted the formation change the Spaniard deployed against Spurs and believes the Gunners will explode - but as long as they find some consistency in their results.
"First and foremost, I’d say yes (they’re making progress) because I think Mikel bought himself some time by winning the FA Cup last year," Henry said on Sky Sports' Monday Night Football show. On the way of winning it, the team that he won against, bought him some time with the Arsenal fans and the team because you have something to show at the end of the season.
"Now, I think the team is lacking consistency and I know people always use the word ‘consistency’ but this is what they need to do.
"Sometimes I put it down to their games, sometimes I watch the first-half of Arsenal, it seems like they don’t believe they can win but when they’re in the 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. I can see progress but now they need to move onto consistency and that is going to be very key.
"I think Mikel does have a good squad, we saw that yesterday. For whatever reason, he left Aubameyang out, but you still have Lacazette.
"They went onto win against Leicester when both teams played in the Europa League and you could see he could change his team and Leicester couldn’t on the day.
"I like the way he set up the team yesterday, if you look at the position of the three strikers, he played almost a 2-3-5 on the ball.
"When they were going forward, more often than not, the intensity was there, the desire of winning the game was there. That team, when they play like that, on the front foot, they’re good enough to beat any team in the league.
"Right now, the squad is good. Can it be better? Yes. Was there progress? Yes, I think there was progress.
"Is there any structure, are they doing better? The table doesn’t lie, at the end of the day. They’re still behind Tottenham although they won yesterday, you’re still behind Tottenham and a lot of teams.
"But it is a process, that soon is going to explode, hopefully it will explode soon, but consistency is needed."
