Why Thierry Henry should not succeed Arsene Wenger

Following a post on this forum on ‘Who should replace arsene wenger‘ in which the author suggests Theirry Henry is the best candidate, I felt the urge to respond with reasons why I believe Thierry Henry, my all time favorite player is not the right man to take over from Arsene Wenger.

 

Just to set the record straight, I believe for the eight years he was at arsenal, Henry is the greatest of all time Arsenal player. He is Arsenal’s leading goal scorer having netted 228 times way ahead of the second placed Ian Wright who scored 185 goals for Arsenal.I even grew up idolizing Thierry Henry. His times at Arsenal were memorable ones, we dare not forget those times. That legendary goal against tottenham hotspurs. . . . .

Those were indeed great times at Highbury. . .

Henry was great, and he scored great goals and ‘we’ won trophies. In his greatness, however, I believe he lacked the most important quality Arsenal needs at the moment, Loyalty !!!. Loyalty to the club and coach who took him from Ajax at 21 years of age and converted him from a little known winger to arguably world’s most lethal central striker at the time. We seem to forget that Henry left Arsenal at the prime of his career to go play for Barcelona because he believed it was the better team to win trophies with. Had players like Bergkamp bolted at the prime of their careers for the better clubs so as to win trophies then Arsenal would never have won any trophies of its own. Henry is partly to blame for the long trophy drought that Arsenal has experienced. Had he stuck around when things were not good he would have allowed the club to build a team around him and win more trophies.

I believe Henry is the genesis of what has become Arsenal’s biggest problem today, the club where young players leave immediately they feel that they are knocking on the door of stardom. The likes of Van Persie, Fabregas, Clinchy, Song, Flamin, Hleb, Sagna and others left immediately they felt they were world-class claiming they wanted to win trophies just like Henry had done. Before Henry left Arsenal such stories were unheard of at Arsenal. He started the culture of leaving to win trophies somewhere else and Arsenal players believing they cannot win at their club. It is a bad culture, the main reason many Arsenal fans cant even tell how it feels to win the premier league or champions league. And now you believe he is the man to lead Arsenal ? What happens when he starts winning big as a coach and Barcelona or Madrid comes knocking with big money and better talent ?. I was a big fan and am still one but I dont think Thierry Henry is the man, loyalty is important and for Arsenal no man represents that better than Bergkamp, that’s my guy to lead the gunners across the river to the promised land.