Thierry Henry insists Arsenal’s young starlets can secure a glittering future for the club - with or without him. The 28-year-old France international striker is out of contract next year and constantly linked with a move to Spain.

But an emotional victory over Real Madrid in the Champions League reminded the French striker of all the things he loves about the north London club.

Henry said: "I knew these questions would come but, after a night like this, it shouldn’t be down to me. We’re a good team with good togetherness and you can see where my desire is from the way I was playing.

"The way I am playing is the most important thing, not all the talking about my contract. I don’t know what the future is going to bring. I just hope we can go as far as we can."

The Arsenal captain was thrilled to lead his young team into the Champions League quarter-finals, which will be drawn tomorrow.

Henry said: "The youngsters are very special. They impressed me in the way they raised their game against a team like Madrid. When you play Real Madrid it’s the name that does it. You hear that name and people get kind of scared. But football is weird.

"People didn’t give us a lot of chance going to the Bernabeu. What we did was amazing. The young lads were not overawed by Ronaldo or (Zinedine) Zidane. They had some great players on the pitch and if you add all their trophies and titles together there are so many.

"But when the ref blew the whistle we were focused on the game and making our tackles. At the end maybe they were looking at their stars after the game and running to get their shirts but I don’t mind that.

"Hopefully one day people will talk about playing against Arsenal just how we talk about playing Real Madrid. I know we are far away from their nine European titles but we are trying to make a start."

The Gunners are the only Premiership team left in the competition, after Chelsea and Liverpool were beaten this week, but Henry would have preferred some company.

He said: "It’s not a lie when I say I think it would have been great if all the English teams could have gone through."