Racists won't force me to lose focus - Henry

THIERRY HENRY has revealed how he has risen above the racist comments of Spain coach Luis Aragones - and vowed not to allow those who taunt him to undermine his game.

While team-mate Ashley Cole called for Aragones to be sacked, Henry simply insisted it was up to others to think about any punishment.

Aragones insulted the French star him with a four-letter racial slur during a Spain training session.

But Henry is determined not to let anything distract his focus on football. "I am a footballer and I have to concentrate on my game. I have to leave that (punishment) to the people who have the opportunity to deal with that," he stressed.

"What can I do? Say 'let's talk about it and sit around a table'? What can I say? I'm not attacking anyone or having a go at anyone. I'm just saying that these kinds of questions should be addressed to the people who have some power to do something. I know what I feel about people and I know how I am and that's it."

Henry was not present to hear Aragones' misguided attempt to inspire Jose Reyes but was soon told about it.

"I was with France with the national team and I saw it on television. That's it, I had a game to play with France. Then I came back here and there was the game against Manchester United," he said.

Henry has nevertheless experienced racism in Spain, during Arsenal's Champions League ties against Valencia, as well as in Greece earlier this season at Panathinaikos.

His response to the taunts in Athens was to stand silently in front of the visiting Panathinaikos fans when he scored against their side in the return fixture at Highbury.

"You can't make any signs back and you can't say anything back, so maybe if you score, you can have a bit of a reaction. You can't not react at all," he admitted.

"But I can't do anything apart from scoring goals sometimes and standing in front of them and kind of laughing at them. Even then, I still take stick for doing that.

"It's a collective sport so I'd rather just concentrate on not putting my team-mates into trouble. If you lose it, they are playing with 10 men."

Meanwhile, West Brom boss Bryan Robson revealed how the fear factor was vanishing from Highbury as visiting teams now look to exploit Arsenal's continuing defensive problems.

Just as Bolton, Southampton and Panathinaikos before them, West Brom took not only a point away from North London but also another shred of Arsenal's defensive pride.

Arsene Wenger is left to rely on Sol Campbell's impending return from injury, not in Wednesday's Champions League tie at PSV Eindhoven but possibly at Liverpool next Sunday.

Robson observed: "The way Arsenal have been playing over the past few weeks, we felt that, if we were patient then we could get a goal against them. We talked about taking our time with set-plays to give Arsenal as many problems as we could. We looked at how Southampton had played against Arsenal to get a result and we also looked at the Tottenham game, where we felt Spurs gave Arsenal a few problems.

"I don't care which team you are. When you lose players of the calibre of Sol Campbell, you miss him. Even though Arsenal are a great side, it's difficult to replace him.

"Arsenal's run was incredible and they still have great players but some of them aren't quite on top of their game and they're not getting the run of the ball."