Arsenal legend, Nigel Winterburn sat down with AceOdds earlier this week to talk all things Arsenal where he was asked about the best technical player he played with, how he sees Arsenal doing next season and more…
Nigel Winterburn was a left-back who spent 13 years in North London between 1987-2000 where he made 440 appearances for the Gunners.
Arsenal currently sit one point behind Manchester City in the Premier League title race with three games left to play. However Pep Guardiola’s side do have a game in hand on the Gunners.
Nigel Winterburn thinks even if Arsenal don’t win the league this season, they’ll be even more prepared to go again in 2023/24 with the experience from this season being vital.
Find below Nigel Winterburn’s full responses…
So, who was the best technical player you played with at Arsenal?
“Easily Bergkamp. I only did one year with Henry, but when I went back to watch Henry he was sensational.
But technically Bergkamp had everything. His touch, his weight of pass, his positioning on the pitch. The guy just oozed class. You see from some of his finishes as well.
He was, for me, he was almost the perfect player to play with. Such a sensational player.”
READ MORE: Fabrizio Romano names Arsenal player as ‘untouchable’ this summer.
How do you see Arsenal doing next season? Do you think they’ve got another title challenge in them as well as playing Champions League football?
“Well I hope so because we’ve upset a lot of people this season! So I certainly hope we have. We will be stronger next season. We will have more experience. That is for sure.
But it’s okay talking about it. It’s up to the players to go and find that drive and desire which I’m sure they’ll have with Mikel Arteta.
To show us that this is just not a one off season and it can become the norm. If you keep putting yourself in a position to win the title or be very close, eventually you get yourself over the line.
I’m excited about watching the end of this season, but I’m also excited about seeing who we’re going to bring to the club and what the start of next season brings for us.
I think for the first time I feel the atmosphere inside the stadium has changed, it’s electric. But I also feel now we’ve got a team that potentially can take us on a great journey, but that team has to deliver trophies along the way as well.”
If Arsenal don’t end up winning the league, how vital is the experience that they’ll get from this season?
“Well it’d be huge, whether they win it or not.
If we’re talking about them being there again next season, season after, they can use both of those moments to realise the situation that they’re in. The pressure that they would be put under, how did they cope, how didn’t they cope with it? What do they need to do better? What drive can I take from it to make sure this time that we get over the line?
So if you win it, then you go “well we know we can win it so we just got to go and do it again” and if you come up a bit short you go “right well these are the areas where we were short for a small period of time, maybe 3/4/5 games we need to make sure that that doesn’t happen again.”
Hopefully next time will allow us to be good enough to go on and win the title. So your past experiences if you use them the right way can be can be vital to drive you forward.”
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