Thierry Henry revealed his three ‘favourites’ to win the Champions League after Arsenal’s dominant victory over Atletico Madrid.
Henry’s former club Arsenal maintained their perfect start to this season’s Champions League with an emphatic 4-0 win over Atletico.
The match at the Emirates Stadium was goalless at half-time, but Arsenal confirmed their dominance after the break, scoring four goals in 13 minutes to blow away the visitors.
Brazilian duo Gabriel Magalhaes and Gabriel Martinelli put the Gunners in control before Viktor Gyokeres ended a run of nine games without a goal with a quick-fire brace.
Arsenal are one of only three teams with a perfect record in Europe after three games, although the likes of Bayern Munich and Real Madrid could join the Gunners with nine points on Wednesday evening.
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Mikel Arteta’s side reached the semi-finals of this competition last season before losing to eventual winners PSG, but Henry believes they can go one step further this time.
CBS Sports In fact, host Kate Scott revealed that Henry considered Arsenal one of the three ‘favourites’ to win the Champions League along with Bayern and PSG.
“Thierry spoke in very good terms about Arsenal and obviously put them alongside Bayern Munich and PSG in terms of favorites for this competition,” she said, asking Jamie Carragher for his thoughts on Arsenal’s chances in the Champions League.
“Do you see it that way, Jamie?”
Carragher, who lifted the Champions League trophy with Liverpool in 2005, said: ‘At the moment I think Arsenal and Bayern are the two most impressive teams I have seen when you look at their performances domestically and what they are doing in the Champions League.
‘I’ve said before on this show that I’ve never had Arsenal as a Champions League club.
“I know that sounds obvious because they’ve never won it before, but I’ve always thought there’s something about them that doesn’t connect, they’ve never really gotten close.
‘From Thierry [Arsenal] team was the best team I ever played against in the Premier League and even that team didn’t come close enough to winning the Champions League. It wasn’t that team that reached the Champions League final.
‘I look at this team now and see how strong they are defensively. My Liverpool team that won the Champions League wasn’t a great team offensively, but defensively we were strong.
‘That always gives you a chance, especially when you get to the knockout stages and the two-legged tie. If you are strong defensively, you always have a chance.
‘So yes, I see Arsenal as one of the four or five teams that can win this competition.’
Arsenal boss Arteta was delighted not only with his team’s emphatic victory but also with Gyokeres’ performance after ending his goal drought.
“I’m very pleased,” said Arsenal’s £64million summer signing UEFA. “They had some good chances but I think overall we were in control.
‘Scoring four and keeping a clean sheet again is very good. We always keep going. We do things well when we defend and when we get the opportunities we are extremely good at taking advantage of them.
‘Both [my] goals were great. I try to do my best all the time and work hard, contribute with different things and the goals would come sooner or later.
“We want to do well, we want to win football matches, but there is still a long journey to go. We take it one game at a time, even if it sounds boring.”
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