Thierry Henry has given his flowers to Unai Emery. In fact, the club legend has even hinted that Arsenal should have stuck by Unai Emery for longer.

By every definition of the word, Thierry Henry is a club legend. He was the centrepiece in one of the best teams the Premier League has ever seen, the Arsenal Invincibles.

Since that season where Thierry Henry established himself among the world’s best, Arsenal are yet to win the Premier League again. In the last two seasons under Mikel Arteta, they have come close but with no cigar.

The consensus is that Mikel Arteta is the manager who can lead Arsenal back to success. Certainly, he’s giving the supporters every reason to believe.

However, things could have looked a lot different, had they stuck with Unai Emery.

Thierry Henry thinks Arsenal should have kept Unai Emery for longer

Speaking to CBS Sports, Thierry Henry was very vocal in his praise for Unai Emery, after Aston Villa beat Bayern Munich in the UEFA Champions League. He even hinted that the Spaniard would have achieved success at Arsenal, if the Gunners stuck by him.

In his own words, Thierry Henry said: “For me, obviously this is no disrespect to what Mikel Arteta is doing and is doing extremely well for Arsenal, I just thought that if we kept him [Emery] a bit longer he would have been a success at Arsenal. He did show it straight after when he left the club.”

Unai Emery was the Arsenal manager between the years 2018-2019. He was the successor of the most successful and longest-serving Arsenal manager ever, Arsene Wenger.

Leaving Paris Saint-Germain to manage Arsenal, Unai Emery took time to adjust to English football. While he played exciting attacking football, the defence was often forgotten about. This meant Arsenal saw some crazy score-lines and lacked stability as reported by paininthearsenal.com.

That said, since leaving Arsenal, Unai Emery rejoined the Premier League in 2022, becoming the new manager of Aston Villa. It goes without saying that he has won over Villa fans and he’s turning them into a European superpower.

This season in the UEFA Champions League, Aston Villa have won won both of their matches. They even beat Bayern Munich last night, something Arsenal have not done since 2015.

So, Thierry Henry is right. It would have only gone up for Unai Emery at Arsenal. However, the club should have no regrets. After all, Mikel Arteta has increased the club’s potential exponential.