The floodlights were going out all over Highbury after the stadium's last European party, and the midnight hour approaching, but Arsenal's captain was in full flow, any attempted interruption as futile as a defender's clumsy lunge, and risking the same withering glare.

A good few opponents had felt the heat of that scowl during a game besmirched by the visitors' unexpected antics, recalling the worst days of mutual antipathy between British and continental opposition. The irony this time was that Arsenal's side does not currently contain a single British player, and that they themselves have both complained about physical excess from other Premiership teams and been accused of overdoing the amateur dramatics.

Henry's response during the game, which he wanted teammates to emulate, was the sort of lofty contempt he does rather well. ?I don't even bother about this anymore. I used to. Before, I would go and try to lift people up . . . but you get in trouble because afterwards you get booked. I don't know if you saw my face when they went down, I'm just looking at them like, 'I didn't even touch you, what are you doing on the floor?' I didn't say anything. Maybe I'm used to the English league.

One time on the far side I said to Cesc [Fabregas] and Manu [Eboue], 'Don't even talk to them, just think about the game, not what they're doing'.

The ref was spot on, he was asking them to get up and that's enough. But I don't want to even talk about this sort of thing."

The reason that the flowing rhythm apparent in Arsenal's previous performances was often lacking, Henry felt, was to do with the more legitimate, if still disappointing influence of Villarreal's star player: ?The thing that killed our rhythm is Riquelme.

Sometimes when you think he's gonna go forward, he doesn't, he just stays there, passes the ball around. But you have to be alert, because he can kill you. They tried to slow the game down, Riquelme just tried to go sideways and backwards keeping the ball. Maybe it was stupid of me in a way but I was surprised they didn't come out at us sometimes and try to have a go.

?Sometimes they didn't even look willing to play, they were just looking for freekicks and things like that. I was surprised they maybe thought 1-0 was enough.

Maybe it was naive of me but I was very surprised they didn't try to score an away goal.

They weren't even willing to play the counter-attack when they had the opportunity to do so."

What are the implications, then, of that scoreline for Tuesday's second leg as Arsenal attempt to reach a sixth European final, but first in this competition? ?I can't think 1-0 is a bad result, especially the way we have played in the past in the competition, the way we can defend and the way we obviously haven't conceded a lot of goals in the competition. I always think as long as we don't concede a goal at home then it is okay, even 0-0 is sometimes is not a bad result at home in Europe.

?We want to put great pace into our game. I think you saw against Real Madrid and Juventus they we're not used to it and I am also sure that the finish Villarreal players had heavy legs. I'm sure that this can play on their mind in the second game because they will have to come out at us over there and leave us some space. It will be difficult over there, a small stadium, great atmosphere, but one thing I'm sure about is to score two goals against us they will have to come out and attack more.

But I saw them play tremendously well against Inter at home so you never know."

Henry will always stick to his guns and for as long as we have known him, those guns have been Wenger's guns.

Here he is on the style and beliefs which Wenger has implanted and insisted on nourishing: ?Go back to four months ago, everyone said we played too beautiful and we don't do anything. But throughout it all we always try to keep playing our game.

At one point it wasn't working and people were saying we should have a Plan B and this kind of thing, but we are still doing it by playing football.

That is us.

The old Arsenal used to win a certain way but now we try to win this way. This is how the club is. When people come here they have to know that is how we play, we pass the ball to each other and we like to play football. I don't if it is the right way . . . some people play another way and win.

Personally I like it our way.

That's how the boss wants it to be here and why I think the Arsenal fans enjoy it a lot.

Sometimes we do get killed because we overplay but that's just the way we are. I don't know if it's good for football. It doesn't mean you are going to win but that's how I love it and how the boss loves it."

A final question about ?seeing the back of this place" brings momentary amusement. Henry takes it, correctly, to refer to the stadium rather than the club. Gesturing in something like awe at the four stands around him, he says: ?You're aware that I love to score here. I have so many memories here. As a team and personally, everything has been great. It's an old English stadium but the thing about it is the grass is so amazing. It's incredible. If you don't have that, the pass is not the same, maybe you have to control the ball two or three times and lose the momentum of the move.

It's a bit weird that we couldn't quite celebrate the last ever game in Europe at Highbury, because we have another game to play over there. But it was pretty special tonight . . . and as someone said we won the last game in Europe, 1-0 to the Arsenal.

Just like the old song."