With the talent that Mikel Arteta displayed as a player, it’s a surprise to hear him speaking of anyone making him feel like a youth team player, but that’s exactly how he felt when he played against one time Gunners colleague, Thierry Henry.
Those feelings surfaced during a match when the Frenchman was in his usual devastating form for the north Londoners, and the Spaniard was wearing the blue of Everton.
“When I had to face him (Henry), it was at a moment that he was unstoppable,” Arteta told the official Arsenal website.
“It seemed that he was playing against youth players, and at that moment I noticed a superiority on his part with respect to everyone that I have never felt.”
Arteta surely isn’t the first, and won’t be the last to feel so small in the World Cup winner’s presence.
Even Barcelona’s best ever player, Lionel Messi, revealed, according to L’Equipe and cited by The Sun, that he couldn’t even look at Henry when he first set foot into the dressing room.
Once the summer transfer window opens for business again, whenever that may be, it could be that Arteta goes looking for a new front man to help fire the Gunners to further success, though it’s doubtful any will make quite the impression as Henry once did.