I feel rather sorry for Thierry
Add comment April 25th, 2008
As every newspaper going wrote their obituary for the career of Thierry Henry this week, I couldn’t help but feel desperately sorry for a man who quite clearly wasn’t ever sure what we wanted.
After a season of disillusionment, he finally moved to Barcelona last Summer. A body battered by nearly a decade of high octane Premier League football was rushed into action, and unsurprisingly he’s struggled.
Loathed by the press and hardly a fans favourite either, Henry’s troubles have been multiplied by the personal problems that also afflicted his final year at Arsenal. Watching this interview, it’s sad to see the once bubbly legend so down on himself and his prospects.
He insists he doesn’t regret leaving Arsenal, but he must wish he was still the object of the adulation he recieved in London. The truth is, we didn’t have a choice but to sell him. Aside from all his injury problems, his performance levels on the pitch dropped dramatically in his final season. After the anti-climax of not moving to Barcelona, he just didn’t have the same drive to win – much like Patrick Vieira’s final season after turning down Real Madrid at the last minute. Much like in a love affair, once your eyes have been turned, it really will never be quite the same again.
I don’t think there’s any chance of Henry coming back. The expense and the ego are not part of Arsene’s current policy, never mind the fact that Henry’s current fitness record is as bad as that of Abou Diaby and Tomas Rosicky, who will both join Hleb in missing the rest of the season.
Still, when Henry was brought on for the final fifteen mintues of Barcelona’s Champions League tie against United, there was a glimpse of the player we used to adore. Cutting inside from the left, he unleashed a thirty yard shot so powerful that it forced Edvin Van der Sar into an awkward punch away. It was only a flash, but the magic is still there somewhere. Might I suggest that Old Trafford would be a good place for Thierry to find his mojo once more.
After Hleb and Flamini yesterday, today it’s the turn of Senderos and Gilberto to be linked with moves away. I have to say, considering the paucity of our options at centre-back, I can’t see Senderos being sold.
However, on the other side of that intriguing transfer coin, we’ve been linked with a couple of Croatian’s: Niko Kranjcar and Ognjen Vukojevic. Kranjcar is a tidy player we know all about, whilst Vukojevic plays for Eduardo’s former club Dinamo Zagreb, and would be a potential replacement for Mathieu Flamini. After signing ‘The Croatian Robbie Fowler’ last Summer, perhaps ‘The Croatian Rino Gattuso’ is not so far-fetched…
More tomorrow, including delicious tidbits from Arsene’s press conference.
