Can Arsenal gain an all important first leg advantage over Barcelona? Click here for the best quarter-final first leg odds.

Barcelona striker Thierry Henry admits his return to face former club Arsenal will be a “strange” experience.

Henry will face his former club for the first time when his current side Barcelona meet Arsenal in Wednesday’s Champions League quarter-final clash.

The Frenchman left the Gunners in June 2007 to join Barca after spending eight years with Arsene Wenger’s side, where he became the club’s all time leading goalscorer.

And ahead of the meeting with his old team, Henry admitted he had hoped to avoid Arsenal in the draw.

“I’m very emotional, but also staying calm,” he said. “It will be a strange game for me. Before the draw I said that I did not want to face Arsenal.

“That was my wish. But now that’s the game we’ve got and we’ll have to give everything.

“It’s very special. To return home is strange and even more so in the quarter-finals of the Champions League.”

Henry was part of the Arsenal side that lost out to Barca in the 2006 final, and he will now line up against his former team-mates.

“It will be different because I spent seven years at Highbury and only one at the Emirates, but to see the people, the fans and the other employees at the club again will be very strange.

“It will be only the second time. I do not know how the fans will react.

“For Barca’s supporters it is a dream to go to Madrid and for me it’s strange to be facing Arsenal en route to that. But football is like that.”

Can Arsenal gain an all important first leg advantage over Barcelona? Click here for the best quarter-final first leg odds.

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