Arsene Wenger admitted he tried to extend Thierry Henry's loan spell at Arsenal after seeing the striker score the winner against Sunderland.
Arsenal boss hails French ace after winner at Sunderland
Arsene Wenger admitted he tried to extend Thierry Henry's loan spell at Arsenal after seeing the striker score the winner against Sunderland.
Henry marked the final Premier League outing of his loan stint from New York Red Bulls with a dramatic last-gasp goal in the 2-1 success at the Stadium of Light.
Wenger confirmed on Friday that Henry was due to return to New York Red Bulls next week, and the Gunners boss admits he will have to respect their initial agreement with the MLS side.
Asked about extending Henry's loan deal, Wenger told
Sky Sports: "I tried. I will not try again because we accept the agreement from the start and we will respect it."
Asked if he had any more words to describe Henry, Wenger said: "No - the best is to watch him play. When I saw him in the box getting that cross from Arshavin I thought now that looks good and he didn't miss it.
"He's an exceptional talent, he has a good partnership with Robin [van Persie] up front very, very dangerous, but today he got us three points and we are very grateful for that."
Spirit and resilience
Wenger hailed his side's spirit and resilience as they came from a goal down to earn all three points to boost their top four aspirations.
"It was a difficult game, on a difficult pitch against a good Sunderland side who were very well organised," added Wenger.
"We needed to be patient, intelligent not to expose ourselves to counter attacks and resilient as well as we were 1-0 down, accidentally, but we were 1-0 down.
"Sunderland defended so well that it became difficult to score two goals, we got it in the end with two special goals.
"We kept going and I felt we were patient as we had problems to create chances because the pitch was very difficult to pass the ball quickly. You had to be technically very good to do it and in the end it was more exceptional spirit that got us the three points."
