THIERRY HENRY scored two wonderful goals to help Arsenal to the easiest victory imaginable against hapless Aston Villa. Arsenal will travel to the second leg of their Champions League quarter-final at Juventus full of confidence after this dominant display, which was capped by Henry's double, an own-goal from Aaron Hughes and late strikes from substitutes Robin van Persie and Abou Diaby.

After a strong opening spell from the visitors, Arsenal came forward menacingly after 19 minutes. Aston Villa goalkeeper Thomas Sorensen pushed Emmanuel Eboue's raking cross-field pass away from Thierry Henry, but the Frenchman recovered to chip the ball goalwards. Liam Ridgewell headed it off the line, but only into the path of Emmanuel Adebayor, who nodded the rebound goalwards and saw the ball go in via a touch off the bar and against the head of Hughes. Shortly afterwards, Henry made it two when he controlled Jose Reyes' through-ball and showed outstanding technique to lob the stranded Sorensen from 15 yards.

However Arsenal's superior display was marred slightly by an injury to their influential midfielder Cesc Fabregas. Shortly after hitting a through pass towards Henry, the Spaniard pulled up in obvious pain and was replaced by Diaby.

Villa brought on Juan Pablo Angel for Kevin Phillips for the second half, but it made no difference because Arsenal scored a sensational third goal less than a minute after a restart. Adebayor latched onto a lofted 50-yard pass from Eboue and flicked it neatly back to Henry with his right foot. The France international needed no further invitation to compose himself and curl a majestic effort into the top-right corner from 25 yards for his 27th goal of another superb season.

Villa were punished once more in the 72nd minute later by Robin Van Persie, who galloped onto Pires' diagonal pass before showing superb skill to dodge Sorensen twice, outwit a defender and fire home a left-foot shot from a very tight angle. And Arsenal did score a fifth nine minutes from time, Adebayor running through before releasing Diaby, who slammed the ball into the roof of the net.