Henry nearing peak form

Arsenal captain Thierry Henry feels close to recapturing full match sharpness following his recent injury lay-off.

The French striker was on target on Tuesday night in the 2-0 Champions League win over Porto at the Emirates Stadium, which saw him chalk up 50 goals in European competition.

"That little thing with my foot is still bothering me a bit, but you saw straight away, when I have legs, it is another story," the Arsenal captain declared. "I can turn and have a go at people. Against Porto, I was fresh, and you saw that straight away."

He added: "When you stop for a week during the season, it does not matter because you have a lot of games under your belt, but when you stop for a week at the beginning, it is not what you want to do."

Tuesday night's victory was a controlled performance from Arsene Wenger's men against a continental side who were not afraid to show their own quality technical approach to the match, adapting a 4-3-3 formation to suit both defence and attack.

Unlike recent visitors for Premiership matches to Arsenal's impressive new 60,000-seater home, the Portuguese side looked to take the game to their hosts, before eventually being out-manoeuvred through Henry's far-post header and an early second-half strike from Alexander Hleb.

"It was difficult and I thought we were not going to be able to score that crucial first goal again," Henry told Arsenal TV Online.

"We had a couple of chances, but kept on passing the ball well and then did manage to score at a crucial time, just before and then after the break."

The Gunners captain added: "I knew I had one goal to go to score 50 in Europe - but when the ball went in, I was not thinking about it because I went straight to see Emmanuel Eboue. His cross was once again inch-perfect.

"What is important to have won 2-0 and the six points. "It was a team effort and everybody played well."