Thierry Henry has drawn attention to a potential limiting factor in Arsenal\u2019s Champions League bid: a shortage of creative spark. The club remain unbeaten in European competition this season and carry a 1\u20130 aggregate lead over Sporting CP after the first leg of their quarterfinal this week, but their display was a gritty, attritional affair rather than a showcase of invention.<\/p>\n
Henry singled out the balance between defence and attack as a concern. \u201cIf the defense\u00a0doesn\u2019t\u00a0work,\u00a0I\u00a0don\u2019t\u00a0think [Arsenal] are creating enough at times to be able to hurt teams and that might be an issue,\u201d the Frenchman said on CBS Sports. He suggested the performance in Lisbon had offered limited attacking inspiration: \u201cThere\u00a0wasn\u2019t\u00a0much in the [Sporting] game or a lot of\u00a0creativity\u00a0but they did what they had to do.\u00a0They won away from home,\u00a0let\u2019s\u00a0see what happens at the Emirates.\u201d<\/p>\n
The first-leg victory leaves Arsenal with the advantage going into the second match at the Emirates, where their home crowd will be a factor. Henry also emphasised the team\u2019s defensive strengths and set-piece value. \u201cWe know their biggest strength\u00a0already.\u00a0They are strong as a team and very solid. For me they are the most solid team in the Champions League. We also know about the set-pieces\u2014people cry about that, but\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0a part of the game and\u00a0a big advantage for Arsenal because\u00a0they\u2019re\u00a0pretty good\u00a0at it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Henry pointed to the role of David Raya in preventing Sporting from taking a more comfortable lead after the first leg, noting that without his heroics Sporting might have had the upper hand.<\/p>\n
If Arsenal protect their lead in the return, a semifinal against Barcelona or Atl\u00e9tico Madrid awaits. The club reached the semifinal stage last season before losing to Paris Saint-Germain. Earlier landmark semifinal ties include a 1\u20130 victory over Villarreal in 2005\u201306 and elimination by Manchester United in 2008\u201309.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Henry says Arsenal’s defence is strong but limited creativity could expose them in Champions League.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11163,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192],"tags":[1162,1047],"class_list":["post-11164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","tag-analytics","tag-champions-league"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11164"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11164\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}