Henry identifies two 'cocky' Champions League teams that Arsenal want to avoid

14 March 2024 , 17:35

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Thierry Henry has discussed the last eight of the Champions League (Image: Getty Images)

Thierry Henry has claimed that Real Madrid and Manchester City are the teams to avoid in the Champions League quarter-final draw.

Henry's beloved Arsenal will find out who they will face in the last eight of the competition at the draw on Friday, following Tuesday night's dramatic penalty shoot-out victory over FC Porto at the round of 16 stage. The Gunners could meet some European heavyweights, with Barcelona, Atletico Madrid, Bayern Munich, Paris Saint-Germain and Borussia Dortmund making up the rest of the sides left.

Henry has made no secret of the fact he believes that there are no easy games at this stage of the tournament, but identified the reigning Premier League champions and Spanish titans as the two sides who can be confident of going the distance regardless of who they draw next.

The Frenchman was pressed for comment on whether he views Dortmund as one of the 'weaker' sides left in the Champions League and cited his playing days with Arsenal as a reason why it's tricky to determine who can be viewed as the weakest outfit.

Henry told CBS Sports: "I remember when we drew Real Madrid everyone laughed because they said, ‘Arsenal are the team you want’, and we Juve and everyone said, ‘that’s a good draw for Juve’, then we played Villarreal, who were a good team at the time, then they aid, ‘it’s good to play Arsenal’, then obviously we couldn’t win the final.

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"I’m just saying, 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 [Guardiola], 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, other than that, let’s see what’s going to happen."

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Arsenal have reached the last eight of the Champions League

In the aftermath of Arsenal's progression past Porto, Arteta stopped short of declaring who he wanted to face in the next round and instead chose to praise his side for simply making the last eight for the first time in nearly a decade-and-a-half.

"For them to do it when the club hasn't managed to do it for 14 years, it tells you the difficulty of it," explained Arteta. "It's another big step, especially as a club.

"The last seven years we haven't been in this competition, the last 14 we haven't been where we are today. That's the difficulty of it, the best thing is we are not satisfied, we want more and we are going to try to go through the next round for sure."

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Josh O'Brien