‘Our team was more physical and responded better to the English game’

Arsenal legend Patrick Vieira has revealed that he believes the current Gunners side are too weak, and need more players like him, if they are to win the Premier League again.

In an interview with The Metro today, the Frenchman revealed that Arsene Wenger needs to invest in more physical players, like he did when the club won the double in 1998.

Vieira stated:

‘Since I left Arsenal, there are new players, a new generation and maybe a new philosophy because Arsenal play better football than we used to do in my time.’

‘But our team was more physical and responded better to the English game. We had everything, and maybe now Arsenal lack the physical aspect of the game. If you look at Manchester United, Chelsea and (Manchester) City, the physical aspect of the game is there.’

‘The big problem in the last few years has been the physical difference between Arsenal and other clubs.’

‘Look at the goalkeeper back then, you had the personality and presence of David Seaman. In defence you had players like (Tony) Adams, (Steve) Bould and (Martin) Keown and then myself and Emmanuel Petit in the midfield – it was a big, physical, intimidating team.’

After retiring at the age of just 35-years-old, Patrick has since swiftly moved on and has acquired the newly-created role of football development executive at Manchester City.

I don’t think anyone can hide from the obvious fact that Arsenal would struggle less often, if we had more players like Patrick Vieira in our side.

But it’s always easy to say what we need. The trouble, as Patrick should know, is the process of actually finding these players.

Sadly, like Arsene Wenger has come to realise, players like Patrick Vieira just don’t turn up from out of nowhere.

Click HERE to see the original article. This article was first published on ArsenalInsider

Written by Mike Harvey