Thierry Henry believes Declan Rice was at fault for Bayern Munich’s equaliser in their 2-2 draw with Arsenal in the Champions League on Tuesday evening.
Bukayo Saka opened the scoring in a thrilling quarter-final first leg at the Emirates Stadium but Bayern were level through Serge Gnabry in the 18th minute after capitalising on poor positioning from Arsenal goalkeeper David Raya and a loose pass from Gabriel Magalhaes.
A superb pass from Leroy Sane found Leon Goretzka, who played another inch-perfect ball for Gnabry to finish first time past Raya.
In the build up to Bayern’s equaliser, Henry highlighted Rice’s positioning and criticised Arsenal’s £105 million signing for attempting to intercept a pass from Sane to Goretzka, which allowed the Bayern midfielder to exploit the space left behind.
‘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 replied: ‘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.’
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