Thierry Henry believes that Arsenal should hope to avoid facing Manchester City and Real Madrid in the next round of the Champions League if they wish to advance further in the competition.
Following their hard-fought victory against FC Porto in the round of 16, Arsenal will be eager to secure a favourable draw in the quarterfinals.
While every club that has qualified for the quarterfinals deserves respect and has the potential to progress, Henry views Manchester City and Real Madrid as formidable opponents who are particularly likely to reach the semifinals.
He said, as quoted by The Sun:
“You can never disrespect anyone in Europe.
“There are two teams there who can be cocky – it’s Real Madrid and Man City, that’s about it. The others, you just take who you can play.
“Man City are the team to beat still, for me. I know Pep, it’s not how he’s going to take it, I was just putting it out there.
“Me as a player, I’ve been in too many situations to know that sometimes the so-called team who was easy to play against is not the case, you arrive and people think, ‘you’re going to win it easy’, no, that’s not really the case.
“So the champions can talk – Man City – and then Real Madrid, we already know they have 14 [Champions League trophies], other than that, let’s see what’s going to happen.”
Just Arsenal Opinion
At this stage of the competition, we must be prepared to meet any club and it is not just Madrid and Manchester City who are in top shape.
If we underestimate other opponents, they can send us packing from the tournament.
But if we are drawn against Madrid or City, even the most positive Arsenal supporter will feel we have a daunting task on our hands.
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Take it from our legend, scoring in the Bernabeu got to be one of the high points of Henry career.
It’s Champions’ League, isnt it!! So we want to be Champions through easy clubs?
Whichever is formidable, we better face it now. If we win, then we are deservedly Champions in the end. If we lose, that reduces fixtures and gives us more time to learn to be proper Champions!!
I don’t care how it’s done. Many teams have only gotten to the finals because they got favorable draws. Chelsea 2021 mainly springs to mind but they did the business in the final against City. (id much rather face city in a one off match as im sure many others would). Make no mistake, luck plays a huge part, and so do the draws. There’s no point complaining now thats it’s done though. We’ll just have to do things the hard way. As Arsenal fans we should be used to that!
Arteta is a master minder and does not fear Pepe,he is a modern coach on fire also Arsenal is an under dog and can beat anyone..Porto was a good team too with a different style of football as they limited Arsenal from playing there game,else we are a super team
Bring any team Arsenal is also feared
I would want us to face city because we know them inside out.
We’ve drawn Bayern Munich.
Going to be a tough game! Kane and Gnabry will want to shine. But I think we can take them.
Then either City or Real in the semi, assuming we go through.
Arsenal can beat any top class team in the world as long as they can read the game well