Arsenal great Tony Adams admits watching his old club for the past decade has been "depressing".

Adams fears for the club's long-term future with the side stuck in mid-table and facing another year without Champions League football.

He told the Mirror: “It's been bloody depressing the last 10 years.

“I think all us Arsenal fans are like, 'Oh my God, Jesus Christ, we concede so many goals', going from the extreme that we were so fantastic in that department to actually what we have been ­seeing.

"Like anyone else I'm there observing, I'm an honest type of guy and say it how it is. It's really frustrating but I don't think I'm alone there.

“I think Arsene has so much identification with me because, at the end of the day, he was probably an addict. He couldn't let go at the end, he's a typical ­addict, he's not letting go.

“He's completely obsessed with the game, every single minute. It maybe cost him relationships and maybe other stuff, and I think it cost him his job.

“More than staying on too long, I think the legacy could have been different if he had done things a bit more open and got in a few more people around him.

"I honestly feel he needed to be more open and needed more winners around him.

“But then he was incredibly loyal to the staff he already had and that is a big dilemma for anyone who has had as much success as he had, to actually turn round to lovely friends he's been with for 20 years and say 'look guys I need to freshen this up ­because we're going nowhere.'

“That's the difference between him and Sir Alex. I think ­Ferguson rekindled his coaches and he got some new perspective on it and he kept it fresh and he created three squads during that period, while it fizzled out under Arsene."