Thierry Henry sends ‘deal with it’ warning to Arsenal, Arteta in crunch week | OneFootball

Arsenal legend Thierry Henry insists his old club, and boss Mikel Arteta, have the squad depth to deal with another quick turnaround in fixtures, following the 1-1 Champions League draw at Atletico Madrid on Wednesday evening.

The Gunners have started to falter at the wrong time of the season, recording just two wins in seven games since their Carabao Cup final defeat to Manchester City. They have also failed to score more than one goal in each of those outings.

That trend carried on in Madrid, as Viktor Gyokeres’ penalty earned them a draw in the first leg of their last-four clash, ahead of Saturday’s Premier League home clash with Fulham.

Under sporting director Andrea Berta, Arsenal have formed one of the strongest squads across Europe, welcoming eight new arrivals last summer. However, many of their top performers have looked jaded for a number of weeks now, at a time when they battling on two critical fronts.

Victory over the Cottagers this weekend will open a six-point gap over Manchester City again in the title race, although Pep Guardiola’s men will have two games in hand, ahead of their clash at Everton on Monday night.

In fairness to the Gunners, they did look more like their old selves in Madrid, but with the focus now back on domestic matters, Henry insists Arteta has the squad depth to be able to rotate and still get a positive result.

Asked how Arsenal will manage the coming days and those games against Fulham on Saturday and Atletico next week, Henry told CBS Sports: “I don’t see any issue. I’m not saying it is going to be easy and pleasant because the game again at Newcastle was very difficult.

“But you have the squad to be able to deal with that, so deal with it.”

Carragher points finger at Arteta

Fellow pundit Jamie Carragher, meanwhile, has accused Arteta of not rotating his squad as much as he should have done earlier in the campaign to try and fend off any fatigue.

Against Atletico, Arteta made two changes to the side that beat Newcastle last weekend, both enforced with Kai Havertz ruled out and Eberechi Eze only deemed fit enough for the bench, having also limped off over the weekend.

While there will be the temptation to cop and change for the visit of Marco Silva’s men on Saturday, Carragher has warned ‘the stakes are too high.’

“Thierry is right, they have the squad. If this was November, he would make some changes,” Carragher said.

“I just think the stakes are so high, there is no way Mikel Arteta is going to be making changes in these games, I would be very surprised.

“The reason he is in this situation now where the players do like a little bit fatigued is because he hasn’t made those changes earlier on when the stakes weren’t as high.

“If they draw against Fulham this will think they gave lost the league. The stakes are just too high.”