Thierry Henry believes that his former side Arsenal will get a new confidence that they can go all the way in the Champions League after the 7-1 routes of PSV Eindhoven.
The Gunners blew their Dutch hosts out of the water on Tuesday evening and registered the highest score ever in a single way through a team in the history of Champions League with their demolition track.
Much of the discourse was where the goals could come from with Kai Havertz and Gabriel Jesus both for the season, in addition to the injuries to Gabriel Martinelli and Bukayo Saka.
Needless to say, after seven strikes of six different scorers, the side of Mikel Arteta have goals that run through well.
Jurrien Timber, Ethan Nwaneri, Mikel Merino, Martin Odegaard (twice), Leandro Trossard and Riccardo Calafiori were all on goal in a huge result for the Gunners, who sees them almost certain to make the last eight, where they will get a huge collision with real or atletic.
As such, with a much more difficult task on the horizon in the quarterfinals, Henry was confident that his old party could use the result to confirm in itself that they need what is needed to win the competition.
“Yes, they can. I believe that, that's why I mentioned it. I say now, show us that you can do that against a good team, with people who come back, “he said at CBS Sports Golazo when he was asked if Arsenal could challenge one of the Spanish giants.
'No lack of respect for Eindhoven, I really thought it would be difficult, especially away from home, but they made it look easy. I think they had an excellent game like you can see with the result.
'But we all know that the [Premier] League is over. If something crazy happens, but what I try to say is that this game can help to have confidence in this competition, but (also) the game you have, Real Madrid or Atletico.
“Sometimes I think the path to the final can sometimes help or not, but if you want to win the competition, you have to go through these teams.”
With the Premier League already, apart from Liverpool, Arsenal's some chance of silverware is the Champions League, which was also beaten from the FA Cup and Carabao Cup.
Despite all their improvement under Arteta since the start of his reign, they have only won one FA Cup and second place in the top of the last two seasons in the top.
But to win the Champions League they will have to beat the best sides in Europe with their hands behind their backs, given the lack of a striker.
The Gunners have not been to a Champions League final since 2006 when they lost to Barcelona, and have since made only one semi-final.
On Tuesday's victory, however, gives them the platform to make only a fourth quarter final of the Champions League in 20 years, where they will take a 15-way winners or Diego Simeone's in-form Atletico Madrid, with real to hit their arch rivals 2-1 in the first stage on Tuesday.
Arteta himself noted that the result had given his side a lot of 'trust', not surprising considering the seven goals they scored, just as much as their previous five games together.
'I really enjoyed the competition. Thank you to the players for the performance they have done. It was a big night for us against a really good side, “he said.
'The way in which they (PSV) thorn in the final round against Juventus (4-3 on aggregated) was really impressive. The way we did it, as we played, the goals we scored. Thank you because it was a special evening.
“It clearly gave us a lot of joy, trust and faith. In football it is not what we did three days ago or today, it will be what we will do tomorrow. '
When asked if he had seen seven goals coming, he joked: “I knew it was coming,” before he added: “No. That's the great thing about it. Nobody in this room when I give you an envelope and say: “Can you predict what will happen tomorrow and who will score?” [would predict that]That's the beauty of football.
“You are doing very well today, put your head down, be modest, analyze how you can improve because the next game will be completely different from this, and nobody can write the script, unfortunately, even if we would like it.”
Comments