Henry incensed by decision

Thierry Henry felt "more than angry" after having what looked a perfectly good equaliser disallowed against CSKA Moscow in Russia.

Arsenal were not helped by the dubious state of the pitch, and had gone behind to a fierce strike from Brazilian Daniel Carvalho from a well-worked free-kick midway through the first half.

However, the visitors thought they had snatched a late equaliser when Henry controlled a deep cross from the right at the far post with his chest, and stroked the ball into the net.

However, Spanish referee Manuel Enrique Mejuto Gonzalez felt that the French striker had in fact used his arm, ruled out the goal and booked the Arsenal skipper.

Manager Arsene Wenger was left incensed by the decision, which could have kept the Gunners top of Group G.

His captain was also less than impressed.

"I am more than angry," declared Henry. "If you look at the replay, you will see that it is not handball. I was shocked the referee gave me a yellow card. It was a good goal."

Henry insisted: "Do you think if the keeper had seen handball, he would not have reacted and appealed for it?

"We did not play that great to win the game, but a draw would have been a good result."

Wenger also hit out at the Spanish match official.

"The referee has not seen anything," the Arsenal boss said. "I felt it was a goal.

"We have to accept sometimes the referee give goals because they do not see things.

"Now we have something new - that they cancel goals because they saw things which did not exist. So that is a new problem they have raised."

Wenger insisted: "I knew from the reaction of Thierry.

"Thierry said: 'I swear I did not touch the ball at all with my hand'.

"It was his stomach.

"Above that, why did he not get a red card if he handled the ball?

"It was a very bad decision, and we have to suffer from it."

Wenger, though, admitted his side had been outplayed for large spells of the match.

"We do not depend on decisions, we depend on our own quality of play," the Arsenal manager said.

"Until they went 1-0 ahead, Moscow were sharper than us, winning more fights that us and finally got the advantage they deserved at that point of the game.

"We tried to attack after that, and they defended in an intelligent way.

"They got a bit of luck with the kind of goal which was cancelled, but overall they have shown great quality."

Wenger believes the shoddy state of the playing surface at the Lokomotiv Stadium also did not help matters.

He said: "UEFA has to look into that because it is not acceptable that you play on pitches like that in the Champions League."

Wenger maintains his men can rectify the Group G situation when Moscow come to the Emirates Stadium in a fortnight's time.

He said: "Moscow are difficult to beat, but I still think we can do that and can show what we can do in the second game."

CSKA boss Valeriy Gazzaev felt his side were deserved winners.

"We have beaten one of the best clubs in Europe, maybe the world," he declared.

"To play our normal game was very difficult because they have a lot of great players.

"But our tactics were just right."