Thierry Henry has warned Mikel Arteta that Arsenal cannot afford a repeat of their performance against Sporting CP of their Premier League match against Manchester City on Sunday.
Arsenal have secured their place within the Champions League semi-final where they’ll meet Atletico Madrid following a goalless draw at home to Sporting on Wednesday night.
However the Gunners, who had a 1-0 win from the primary leg in Portugal last week, delivered one other unconvincing performance as they registered only one shot heading in the right direction against Sporting within the return fixture on the Emirates Stadium.
Arsenal now turn their attention to the Premier League this weekend as they play City on the Etihad Stadium in a game which may have a big impact on the title race.
Arteta’s side currently sit six points clear of City at the highest of the Premier League but Pep Guardiola’s side have a game in hand and can cut that lead to 3 points with a win.
‘I would like to see that fireside on the Etihad,’ Henry told CBS Sports.
‘That’s what I would like to see, it’s easy to speak, go there, at Man City, and deliver.
‘I imagine in what I see though, I imagine in him Arteta, ‘the hearth’, but while you talk like that you’ve to do it then. I didn’t see that tonight.
‘We’re through, so joyful, semi-final, I never won it, but I won the league though, go and win at Man City, I would like to see that fireside there, I imagine Mikel, yes, but show it.’
Asked how he would approach the sport against City, Henry replied: ‘Not like tonight, or against Bournemouth, or Brighton away, or Mansfield, or all the things that I’ve seen this season.’
Asked if the performance against Sporting can be enough to beat City, Henry laughed and replied: ‘The Man City I’ve seen recently? We’re talking concerning the team that won 4 in a row, Liverpool got here in between that if not it could have been more.
‘I do imagine, I’ve been saying for the reason that starting of the season, this 12 months I do imagine we are able to win the league, that is the most important likelihood in your life simply to prove to yourself, as a team, that we are able to.
‘After which people won’t talk concerning the word they need to use that I are not looking for to make use of.
‘I do imagine personally but I’m sitting in a chair for CBS, there’s nothing I can do. Now I heard ‘fire’, I would like to see that fireside on the Etihad.
‘If you’ve the face of Declan Rice return to that, at the top of the sport I stayed together with his face, you had a whole lot of guys smiling but his face… I don’t know, perhaps I would like to talk to him to know what he had in his head. It is a guy who just went through to the semi-final of the Champions League.
‘There’s no positive or negative here. We’re in a semi-final of a Champions League, well done, that didn’t occur lots in history so obviously I’m over the moon. But City… I would like the team to win there, not draw, statement.’
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