Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta has heaped praise on a player Arsene Wenger sold many years ago.

The Gunners have had several world-class footballers over the years. Some of them achieved great things for us in North London, while others moved on and succeeded elsewhere.

Arteta joined Arsenal as a player back in 2011, and although the Gunners weren’t the team they used to be at that point, we still had a few exceptional footballers.

One of them seems to have caught Arteta’s eye, so much so that he still rates that player very highly.

Mikel Arteta says Arsenal had the ‘perfect’ number nine

Mikel Arteta has proven over the last few years at Arsenal that he has a tremendous eye for talent.

Arsene Wenger was the same many years ago. The legendary Frenchman could spot a magnificent talent before most others, and he helped many of them become stars of the game.

There are plenty of stories you can find of players crediting Wenger for making their careers. He was just phenomenal, but Arsenal’s financial constraints meant he had to sell many of them.

The likes of Cesc Fabregas, Samir Nasri and Emmanuel Adebayor all left the club, and Arsenal made some decent money through their sales.

Another player who decided to leave Arsenal was Robin van Persie. He was sold to Manchester United for £24 million, and that hurt many of us, including Jack Wilshere.

The Dutchman was our captain and best player in his final few years at the Emirates. He had an unbelievable campaign in 2011/12, where he scored 37 goals and provided 13 assists in all competitions for Arsenal.

Arteta filmed a video with Goal recently, and the Arsenal boss was asked to describe players using a few words.

When Van Persie’s name came up, the Spaniard said: “The perfect nine.”

READ MORE: Robin van Persie now makes surprise claim about Arsenal exit

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Arsenal currently have a player like Robin van Persie

It’s clear as day that Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta is a big fan of Robin van Persie.

The Dutchman, as much as we dislike him for the way he left and how poorly he has behaved since, was a tremendous footballer – one of the best strikers we’ve seen in the Premier League.

Arsenal have wanted a striker for over a year now, and if Arteta could sign a number nine like Van Persie, he would jump at the chance of doing that.

If Thomas Tuchel is to be believed, however, Arsenal already have a player like the Dutchman.

The Bayern Munich manager, when he was at the helm at Chelsea, compared Kai Havertz to Van Persie. He also claimed the German is similar to Dennis Bergkamp.

Tuchel said in 2021: “I see a bit of Dennis Bergkamp, Robin Van Persie, [Dimitar] Berbatov kind of player (in Havertz).

“He can play in the half position because he has good runs, but also feels free from the nine and creates overload to one side. When I watched him at Leverkusen, I didn’t know that I would coach him, when I watched him at Paris [Saint-Germain], they made him play as a nine which was very interesting.

“I remember when I watched a cup final against Bayern [Munich] with my staff and said: “This could be a good role for him”.”