Henry goes: c’est la vie!

Join the debate on Thierry’s Arsenal exit

DON’T panic, readers. Every big team in England – and Spurs – found out last season that an Arsenal team without Thierry Henry can still be too hot to handle.
Manchester United were beaten at home by an Arsenal line-up that didn’t include Thierry. Liverpool were destroyed 6-3. Chelsea needed two late equalisers to dodge defeat. Tottenham were clubbed 3-0 and then 3-1.
Arsenal have shown they can beat the best without him – and now, as he heads off to somewhere where summer comes with sunshine, they are going to have to.
The kind scorelines and statistics, of course, hide the truth of the Thierry tragedy.
Arsenal are not
a one man team but no team in the world is better for not having a player like Thierry. He was the best player that the Premiership has ever seen and Arsenal fans have been spoilt for the past eight years. There should be no bitterness at the end, respect what he did and see him off with fond memories.
There was the time he dribbled past the whole Liverpool team. He did the same to Real Madrid. He ran from his own penalty area and scored against Spurs. He flipped a sweet half-volley against Manchester United,
pirouetted around Chelsea’s Carlo Cudicini and scored with an outrageous back-heel against Charlton. The list goes on and on and on...
In the press rooms at Highbury, he was sometimes given the laborious nickname ‘End of The Day’, you would hear journos ask: “Has End of The Day’ been in yet?” The joke was that Thierry started every sentence with that hackneyed phrase. But the hacks rarely mocked him because he was such an amiable interviewee. He would stay talking until the last question had been asked. His team-mates had by then disappeared onto the coach, usually with their ears covered by oversized headphones.
That kind of thing is respected beyond what tricks you can do on the football pitch.
He turned Arsenal into a supercool Ocean’s Eleven-style unit, slick suits off the pitch, slick passing on it. Henry. Ljungberg. Pires. They were literally invincible. It became cool to be an Arsenal fan. Wives and girlfriends started turning up. He even made car ads appear cool.
Usually when something bad happens to Arsenal – and Thierry Henry going to Barca is something bad – there is a queue of people ready to tease Arsenal fans. Even people who know nothing about football add their own jibe. This time only the real rotters sent cruel text messages. That’s because his talent transcended petty fan rivalries. Supporters of other clubs are genuinely sad to see him leave the league. He had too much class to hate. The only grumps were the Spurs fans, who quite plainly were jealous of his skill. Trawl through the Tottenham archives, you won’t find a player that comes close to matching him.
When Thierry tried to pass a penalty kick a couple of seasons ago, it was a source of embarrassment – but, deep down, rival fans admired an entertainer with such imagination. For the billions of pounds that Chelsea wasted on not winning the league last season – they play a brand of boring long ball football which Henry would never have accepted.
The argument that Henry is past his best is fair. His best years will always be the ones he spent at Arsenal. One of Arsene Wenger’s proudest achievements must be the way he turned a hit and miss winger into such a deadly striker. Forget the stuff about David Dein. And David Dein’s son. And Kroenke. Wenger could have stopped the deal if he wanted to – but he doesn’t hand out long contracts to players over the age of 30. Even to Henry. Henry will be 31 at the end of next season.
If Henry can contribute something extra in Spain during his final years, then here is a man so adored that he is capable of making a few of the racist fans that have bleamished Spanish football in recent years think twice.
For those of us left behind – remember – at the end of the day, as the Thierry would say, Arsenal are still better than Spurs without him. And Man United. And Chelsea.
Now get Walcott on.