Thierry Henry holds the opinion that Declan Rice was responsible for Bayern Munich’s equalizer in their 2-2 draw against Arsenal in the Champions League on Tuesday night.
Bukayo Saka initiated the scoring in an exhilarating first leg quarter-final clash at the Emirates Stadium. However, Bayern leveled the score through Serge Gnabry in the 18th minute, taking advantage of a positional error from Arsenal goalkeeper David Raya and a loose pass from Gabriel Magalhaes.
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A brilliant through-ball from Leroy Sane found Leon Goretzka, who then delivered another perfectly placed pass for Gnabry to swiftly convert past Raya.
Leading up to Bayern’s equalizing goal, Henry pointed out Rice’s positioning and admonished Arsenal’s £105 million acquisition for trying to intercept a pass from Sane to Goretzka. This move inadvertently created space for the Bayern midfielder to exploit.
‘The goal of Gnabry and what Declan Rice should have done at that particular moment, because you’re the police officer and a mistake happened, you have to rectify it,’ Henry said during his analysis for CBS Sports.
‘More often than not he does it, but he didn’t do it tonight.
‘We talk about the goalkeeper coming, we talk about the back pass, but look at the distance between the two centre-backs, and I know at that particular moment it doesn’t look like that you’re going to be in trouble.
‘At that moment you cannot make the three steps he’s going to make. Leroy Sane wasn’t born yesterday, you make those three steps, Goretzka sees it and runs in behind because look at the gap between Gabriel and Saliba, and you have a man [Gnabry] running.
‘If he [Rice] stays and sees the guys all in front of him, nothing happens.
‘But as you know, when you lose the ball you tend to want to go [to close down] because he thought it was going to be a short pass.
‘But he’s [Sane] clever, he’s [Goretzka] clever, and on that one you are not.’
Asked if Saliba could have anticipated the pass, Henry said: ‘You’re dead. You can’t.
‘He’s aware of Gnabry coming. It’s a hell of a pass. It’s Leroy Sane on the ball, it’s not a guy at the bottom of the Premier League on the ball.
‘You go there, the guy on the ball saw it, that’s on you, you shouldn’t lose that ball. I’m just saying Declan Rice at that particular moment, just don’t go, [stay in a] back three and you see Gnabry, Sane and Goretzka coming.’
