This was not even an exceptional Bayern Munich side, but they were infinitely more committed to attack than Wenger's team.The Arsenal manager would not allow the aftermath of defeat to be the scene for a "drama" and his argument with the night's events extended only to a mild quibble about the amount of added time. This is no longer an Arsenal side that can impale their opposition on the thrust of their attacks, but there is also no depth of spirit to see them through the dark days.In attack, Henry was for too long the brooding lone figure whose dislocation from the rest of the side seemed only to increase his turmoil, while the contribution of Jose Antonio Reyes never developed into anything approaching a match-winning display. With time leaking away, and his team largely unresponsive to the urgency of their situation, Ars? Wenger beat the Champions' League hoarding in front of his dug-out in a passionate exhortation.It looked like the actions of a man who felt that it could be time to re-engineer a team that first astounded us this year with their excellence and then, in equal measure, with their decline. An Arsenal team still mourning the loss of their once giant reputation have now vandalised their own season to the point that only the FA Cup remains a realistic aim. Last night Thierry Henry offered them a fragile shard of hope with his second-half goal, a brilliant memento from a lost Arsenal era, but his team have long since lost the instinct to turn vital games on their head. Victory at Highbury was not enough for Arsenal to progress in a competition that has confounded their vast reserves of talent over the last seven years, but the nature of their exit this season had a far more profound sense of loss about it. They went quietly in the end. They lost the game but Henry, at least, retained his honour..

It was that Henry had come to play, to fight for his reputation and the life of his club as a serious force in English and European football.That was something to take from the night Arsenal again failed to make their mark in Europe. He said that Thierry Henry and Arsenal were indivisible, you could not judge one without the other. He said it with great intensity, as well he might.Last night, however, we did see that division clearly enough. We saw an Henry who, for one reason or another, chose to wear the fact that he cared like a battle flag, and we saw an Arsenal, uninspired but slowly biting into the match, truly fighting for their lives in Europe, the theatre of action where they have consistently betrayed themselves.That they found the will to do this was, who knows, perhaps because so much expectation had been placed on the shoulders of Henry, a star surely, but also a warrior? But whatever the explanation, there was one certainty.

Kahn stifled Henry's shot but he could not wipe away the effects of the Frenchman's intervention.It was the clearest evidence that Henry remained far and away the most significant catalyst of Arsenal's surviving hopes for the season which began to drain away with that devastating defeat at Old Trafford last October.When he made his run along his favourite terrain of the left, when he wore his intensity on his face and injected it into every small phrase of his body language, Highbury did suddenly believe again. However, it was a perilous yearning, buffeted constantly by the swarming work of the men in black.On the eve of the match Henry released an extraordinary stream of consciousness when dealing with the growing belief that football history may judge him harshly when it weighs the size of his talent and the slightness of his achievements on the biggest occasions. Henry smoothly gathered in a rebound off the shin of Robert Kovac and bore down on Oliver Kahn, the eccentric but still workably obdurate German goalkeeper. It was impossible to do so when Ronaldinho unfurled an astonishing goal at Stamford Bridge on Tuesday night. The one Henry scored in the 66th minute here was not of the same order of fantasy, but it was perfect in every way.It was perfect in first touch, in control and in finishing certainty when Ashley Cole, sensing a growing desperation around him, slung down a long ball in the path of Henry.This was the essence of Henry, the sublime goalscorer facing a growing crisis of doubt about his ability to deliver the best of his talent when it matters most.Before his superb goal Henry seemed implicitly to acknowledge the pressure on his shoulders.