I thought 'this isn't the Arsenal I know' watching them celebrate – but things have changed

David Seaman sees Arsenal as 'genuine contenders' for the Premier League title next season, as the Gunners search for their first top-flight trophy since 2004.

Seaman lifted two Premier League trophies, four FA Cups, three Community Shields and a League Cup in his coveted 13-year career with Arsenal between 1990 and 2003, before moving to Manchester City and retiring at the end of the 2003/04 campaign. That very same year, The Gunners would complete their 'invincibles' season, after winning the league unbeaten.

And while the legendary goalkeeper would enjoy his fair share of highs with the North London side, he also admitted that he was frustrated by the lows of missing the mark.

In an interview with Football London, as part of his role as an ambassador of Frank's RedHot Sauce, he said: "I remember when we celebrated - quite a lot actually - getting top four, and I was like ‘this is not like the Arsenal I know’. Normally if we finish fourth it’s a bad season."

However, after a 20-year drought without lifting the Premier League title, Seaman sees his former team as 'genuine contenders' to dethrone Manchester City next year. He explained: "Yeah, we’re getting better and better. The last two seasons have been really positive, we’re now genuine contenders."

Arsenal will have to bolster their squad though if Mikel Arteta has any serious hopes of bringing greatness back to the club, with David noting that they currently lack a proven goal scorer and depth in certain areas of the pitch. He went on: "Do we need a couple of players? Yeah, I think we do.

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"I still feel we could do with a striker. There are transfer rumours of different players coming in but we need a marquee signing as in a striker, you know? A finished article.

"And then maybe cover for a few others, certainly if Bukayo Saka gets injured, we haven’t got a lot of cover for him on that side and maybe a central defender, because we all saw what happened not last season but the season before when we got injuries. Players were out and it cost us, so we do need cover."

Arsenal came agonisingly close to lifting the Premier League trophy this year, missing out by two points to Pep Guardiola's Manchester City on the final game of the season.

A 2-1 victory over Everton at the Emirates Stadium put fans in good spirits, but an already ahead City failed to slip up in their 3-1 defeat over West Ham on the very same day meaning the trophy stayed in Manchester for the fourth year in a row.

Seaman kept 237 clean sheets in 564 appearances for Arsenal after joining from Queen's Park Rangers in 1990 - also winning 75 caps for England between 1988 and 2002. He was inducted into the Arsenal Hall of Fame in 2016.

Seaman was speaking as part of his new role as an ambassador of Frank's RedHot Sauce, where he was joined by fellow former goalkeeper Peter Schmeichel.

On the collaboration, Seaman said: “Me and Peter Schmeichel got together and we were discussing obviously the Euros - Denmark and England - but we were also trying out Frank’s Red Hot Sauce on all sorts of different foods.

"English foods and Danish foods, and yeah - it was a great time, we had a good laugh and we spoke about all our predictions and who might be doing what and he actually really fancies Denmark - which I was surprised at but we will see.”