Thierry Henry has named Barcelona as one of his favorites for the Champions League this season along with Arsenal and Bayern Munich.
Barcelona drew 1-1 in the first leg of their Champions League last 16 tie against Newcastle, with Henry admitting afterwards defensive improvements are still needed.
“For me, right now, my three favourites – whatever order you want to put them it doesn’t really matter – Bayern, Arsenal and Barcelona,” he said on CBS Sports.
“I keep on every time thinking that they can
be, but then the way they defend sometimes is still suspicious.
“You are not playing well against Newcastle, it’s 0-0, now that’s 12 times in a row in the Champions League that you’ve conceded a goal and that’s not good enough.”
Henry then compared Barcelona with Bayern – who thumped Atalanta 6-1 in their first leg – and explained why the Bavarian giants have the edge on the Catalans.
“I think that Bayern is way more balanced than Barcelona in terms of how they attack, how they shift places,” he added.
“You will see, whoever it is – it can be the winger inside, the striker like we saw with Nicolas Jackson on the right – [Bayern] know what they need to do, they press well, they’re very difficult to beat at times.
“It looks like at Barcelona sometimes, you have the tie against Atletico in the Copa del Rey where they lost 4-0 and it could’ve been 6-0 or 7-0 to Atletico, then you bring it back to Barca [to win 3-0] and then it could have been 6-0, 7-0, 8-0 to you.
“[Barcelona] need to find that consistency and that balance if they want to win and be considered one of the hot favourites to win it – I still think they are.
“But that balance sometimes that they don’t have make me turn a tiny bit more to Bayern and Arsenal.”
Arsenal are in action later today against Bayer Leverkusen in the first leg of their last 16 tie, with the return fixtures set to take place next week.
