Henry warns Arsenal after unforeseen Pep change at Man City as only Gunners ‘irreplaceable’ named

Thierry Henry has warned Arsenal over the threat Manchester City will pose in the Premier League title race after seeing Pep Guardiola’s side doing something “that would never have happened in the past”.

Arsenal have won eight of their 11 games this season to sit pretty at the top of the table but the last round of fixtures was a good one for City who beat Liverpool 3-0 to close the gap on the Gunners to four points, who drew 2-2 with Sunderland.

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And Henry has hailed a big change Guardiola has made this season as he looks to keep the pressure on Arsenal at the top of the table.

“Very impressed,” Henry told Betway. “I never thought he would have allowed his wingers to come inside so early in the build-up like they do.

“I never thought he would allow his left winger to go on the right. That would never have happened with Pep in the past – two wingers on the same side of the ball, like against Man Utd at home.

“Pep has found a way. He had to find his starting 11, and you can see now that Jeremy Doku is clearly the guy on the left, while on the right it changes sometimes with [Rayan] Cherki or Savinho.

“When you have Phil Foden coming back in form, it changes things, although I think he’s better in that No. 10 position on the right, where he can come back on his left foot and punish you.

“We’re still waiting for Rodri to get back to a certain level. I think that’s a tiny bit missing, although Nico Gonzalez played well against Liverpool.

“Now he has Nico O’Reilly starting to look like the player that everyone thought he was going to be, and they have a freak up front who can score in his sleep.”

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Henry believes Manchester City are the team Arsenal “don’t want on your shoulder” as they look to win the Premier League title for the first time since 2003.

“If you’re an Arsenal fan, that’s exactly the team that you don’t want on your shoulder, because they know how to win,’ he added. “It’s not great as an Arsenal man to see them coming back to their level. They look like a team about to go on a run.

“I think Pep had to deal with having two new assistants and a new way of playing. What you were hoping for while City made that adjustment is that Arsenal could go ahead and take some points, and that’s exactly what happened. But it was always going to be a battle.”

Meanwhile, fellow Arsenal legend Alan Smith has named the one “irreplaceable” player in Mikel Arteta’s side.

Smith said: “We’ve seen Arsenal lose a couple of key players, haven’t we?

“Martin Odegaard was perhaps the main one but [Eberechi] Eze came in and we haven’t really seen a drop-off.

“Declan Rice would be a big loss if he got injured because you would lose that drive in midfield and his set-piece ability which has become so important. They haven’t really got anybody to replace Rice.

“The defence has been superb but even at the back, [Cristhian] Mosquera has come in at times and they’ve got [Piero] Hincapie as well, so Rice would be the biggest loss for me.”