Thierry Henry says yesterday’s ignominious defeat to Manchester United has left him questioning whether
Arsenal‘s players have the ability to be champions.
Arsenal have looked one of the frontrunners for the title all season but haven’t won the Premier League since all
the way back in 2004, with a real lack of winning experience amongst their ranks.
And after seeing their trophy aspirations take a massive dent at Old Trafford on Sunday, two-time Premier League
champion Henry is unconvinced that the current side can emulate the team that he played in.
“I don’t think that would have happened [when I played for Arsenal]. Things did happen in my time, we did lose 6-1
but we were the wounded team when we came here [at Old Trafford],” he told Sky Sports.
“That wasn’t a performance from a team who want to be champions. That’s where, as an Arsenal fan, I’m looking at it, I’m not sure that team can be champions, can they show me they can be champions? Today, they didn’t reassure me on anything.
“The only thing that’s good is that they are still in the title race, other than that they were second best in
everything. It was a really poor performance.”
Despite Tuesday night’s Champions League defeat to Barcelona, Arsene Wenger’s men went into the game on the back of two successive league victories having steadied the ship from a rocky January period.
The Gunners were looking to close the gap between them and leaders Leicester, who had beaten Norwich on Saturday, but instead failed to come away from Manchester with a single point, subsequently losing ground on the Foxes and Tottenham Hotspur, who beat Swansea City.
Two Marcus Rashford goals and a third from Ander Herrera cancelled out Danny Welbeck and Mesut Ozil’s efforts as a hugely depleted United XI dealt a huge blow to the Gunners’ bid for top spot.
They will now need to bounce back against Swansea on Wednesday evening to ensure they don’t risk falling eight
points behind Leicester with just 10 games left to play heading into next Sunday’s crunch north London derby clash
with Spurs, which could all but end their title challenge.
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