Arsenal legend Thierry Henry has set his former club a target for the 2025/26 campaign and has revealed his verdict on head coach Mikel Arteta.
Under Arteta, Arsenal have made immense progress over the past few seasons as they have cemented themselves as one of the best teams in Europe.
However, the Gunners are without a trophy since they won the FA Cup at the end of the 2019/20 campaign, having finished second in the Premier League for three consecutive seasons.
Arsenal also fell short in the Champions League last season as they were beaten in the semi-finals by eventual winners Paris Saint-Germain.
Arsenal had an injury crisis to deal with last season, and this was often used as an excuse for their shortcomings, though there is less weight to this argument this term.
This is because the Gunners are well-stocked with multiple top-quality options in every position, so club legend Henry claims “it’s a must this year to win something” as they “can’t hide”.
“Right now I will say that nobody has a team as deep as Arsenal, in terms of the quality they can have,” Henry said during CBS Sports’ Champions League coverage.
“Some team can give them a good run for the starting eleven, but if you look at the team itself it’s almost two teams. When you see who is on the bench tonight and you’re still missing [Martin] Odegaard, Kai Havertz, Bukayo Saka, Gabriel Jesus… when you look at that the team is well-equipped to play in all competitions.
“But now let’s all be honest, it’s a must this year to win something. It’s a must, you can’t hide.
“Whatever it is you have to bring something, I know people will talk about the title, I do think it is going to be a battle between Liverpool and Arsenal, you can’t write off Man City yet, they’re trying new things with new players.
“But you have to win something, if you talk about what has been done recently, finishing second never gave you a trophy, it’s great but at some point you’ve got to validate what you are doing.”
Henry has urged Arsenal to “go and get it”, though. He has also alluded to his concerns about Arteta’s negative mentality.
“But when you play for the title you need to go and get it,” Henry continued.
“Not playing not to lose games. If you want to beat Liverpool or Man City, you’ve got to go and get it, you cannot enter a game with, ‘let’s not lose it’.
“If you want to win the league, in my time, you had to get Man United, you cannot just go and say, ‘let’s see if we can draw this one’.”
When asked whether he believes that was Arsenal’s approach in their 1-0 defeat to Liverpool last month, Henry replied: ‘Not only [there], it happened so many times.
“I’m sure you remember that game where we lost 2-0 to Aston Villa at home [in 2024].
“He [Arteta] takes a striker out and puts in a holding midfielder, at that moment he thought about not losing the game, we ended up losing, [Ollie] Watkins scored, if we won that game we were ahead of Man City and who knows what would happen.
“I’m just saying, if you want to win the league, you have to go and get it.”