Mikel Arteta should be honoured with a statue outside the Emirates Stadium if he completes Arsenal’s “best season” by winning the Champions League, according to one of the club’s most decorated players, David Seaman.
The Gunners’ 22-year wait for the Premier League title ended on Tuesday night following Manchester City’s 1-1 draw at Bournemouth.
The result sparked wild celebrations, among the players and staff at their training base, as well as thousands of supporters at the Emirates.
Declan Rice, Bukayo Saka, Eberechi Eze and Jurrien Timber even completed a 5am lap of the stadium and posed for selfies with disbelieving supporters still revelling in Arsenal’s first title since 2004.
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Arsenal have secured the league and FA Cup double three times previously, while Arsene Wenger’s ‘Invincibles’ took the title without losing a game. They are yet to win the Champions League.
Wenger is one of six men connected to the club to be immortalised with a bronze statue outside the ground. Thierry Henry, Dennis Bergkamp, Tony Adams, former manager Herbert Chapman, and the club’s president Ken Friar, are the others.
And when asked if Arteta could become the seventh if Arsenal see off Paris St Germain in the final on May 30, Seaman, who won nine major trophies across a 13-year career for the Gunners, told the Press Association: “If that does happen, it is going to be the best season in the club’s history, so why not?
“I just feel this team can get better and better. The club has never won the Champions League before and that would be one hell of a double. It is a big ‘if’, but it would be epic.
“The players who already have statues have won a lot of trophies and so did Arsene. And I want Mikel to win so much more. He thoroughly deserves it because of the way he took this club by the horns and led it in a new direction.”
Arsenal, runners-up in the league for the previous three seasons, had faced accusations of “bottling” their trophy bid after they surrendered their place at the top of the table in the wake of a 2-1 defeat at City on April 19.
But while City subsequently drew at Everton, and then at Bournemouth, Arsenal bounced back from their loss at the Etihad by winning their next four without conceding.
Arteta, who joined Arsenal as manager in December 2019 with the club in disarray, installed a blacked-out Premier League trophy at the club’s London Colney training base which would light up only when the Gunners were crowned champions.
“Light that up,” Saka said in footage posted by team-mate Timber to Instagram on Tuesday night.
“Let me tell you something. Twenty-two years, 22 years. there was laughing, there was joking, they’re not laughing anymore. Look, it is going to be shining, it is going to be shining bright.”
In a separate Instagram story, Myles Lewis-Skelly is holding a champagne bottle.
“They called us bottlers,” Lewis-Skelly said. “And now we’re holding the bottle.”
Eze also posted a picture of captain Martin Odegaard drinking from an Arsenal-badged bottle in a further swipe at the club’s detractors.
Seaman, who watched City’s demise unfold alongside former team-mates Martin Keown and Robert Pires at the Emirates, continued: “The pressure that has built up over the past few years was massive.
“I was at the Bournemouth game where Arsenal lost (on April 11) and I saw the fans change, the players change, but now that’s all gone, they’ve done it, it is such a relief, and it will snowball from here.”
Arteta’s current deal expires next year, and former England goalkeeper Seaman added: “We have got to get that contract sorted as soon as possible.
“He is a vital part of Arsenal. He played here, he was captain here, he has managed here, and now he is a Premier League champion. He is the perfect fit.”
Arteta’s side will be presented with the trophy after their final match of the season at Crystal Palace on Sunday before they face PSG in Budapest six days later.