Thierry Henry believes his former side Arsenal will gain a new confidence that they can go all the way in the Champions League after the 7-1 demolition of PSV Eindhoven.
Mikel Arteta’s men blew PSV away on Tuesday night, registering the highest ever score in a single away leg by any team in Champions League history.
Much of the discourse had been where the goals might come from with Kai Havertz and Gabriel Jesus both out for the season, alongside the injuries to Gabriel Martinelli and Bukayo Saka.
Needless to say, though, that after seven strikes from six different scorers, Mikel Arteta’s side have goals running right the way through them.
Jurrien Timber, Ethan Nwaneri, Mikel Merino, Martin Odegaard (twice), Leandro Trossard and Riccardo Calafiori were all on target in a massive result for the Gunners, which sees them almost certain to make the last eight, where they will face a huge clash with either Real or Atletico Madrid.
As such, with a much more difficult task on the horizon in the quarter-finals, Henry insisted confident that his old side could use the result to reaffirm to themselves that they have what it takes to win the competition.
“Yes, they can. I do believe that, this is why I called it. I’m just saying now, show us that you can do that against a good team, with people that are coming back,” he said on CBS Sports Golazo (via Daily Mail) when asked if Arsenal could challenge one of the Spanish giants.
“No disrespect to Eindhoven, I really thought it was going to be difficult, especially away from home but they made it look easy. I think they had an outstanding game as you can see with the result.
“But, we all know that the [Premier] League is over. Apart if something crazy happens but what I’m trying to say is that this game can help maybe to be confident in this competition but (also) the game that you have after, Real Madrid or Atletico.
“Sometimes I think the path to the final can at times help or not, but if you want to win the competition you have to go through these teams.”
With the Premier League all but Liverpool’s already, Arsenal’s only chance at silverware is the Champions League this term, having also been knocked out of the FA Cup and Carabao Cup.