Kieran Gibbs believes Arsene Wenger deserves more credit in hindsight than he often got in his final years at Arsenal.
In recent years, we have seem a number of big clubs finishing in mid-table obscurity - or even worse.
Chelsea finished 12th in 2023 and 8th in 2026. Manchester United finished 15th in 2025. Tottenham finished 17th in both of the past two seasons and were at serious threat of relegation last season.
There's a number of reasons that has happened, including a huge hike in the money the Premier League's middle-class are making out of TV rights relative to their equivalents in other countries.
But whatever the cause, former Arsenal left-back Gibbs feels Wenger did a better job than people necessarily realised to keep the Gunners consistently in the top four.
Although Wenger's last Premier League title came in the Invincibles season in 2003/04, they did not finish lower than 4th until his final two seasons in charge, in 2016/17 (5th) and 2017/18 (6th).
Things initially got worse following Wenger's departure before improving again.
Unai Emery and Mikel Arteta took Arsenal to back-to-back 8th-place finished before the latter gradually got to them back on top of the English game again last year.
And Gibbs told FourFourTwo: "During my time there, I always felt that we were only two or three signings away from winning the league.
"But the club was in a cycle, after moving into the new stadium, where the board were only willing to spend so much and we were losing players in key moments.
"f you compare it to other big clubs who are struggling now, it wasn’t as bad as it might have been perceived at the time.
"We never fell out of the Champions League places.
"I think he did an incredible job and I’m very fortunate to have played for [Arsene Wenger]. All of his stories and lessons have stuck with me
