Monthly Archives: December 2006

Henry-less Arsenal Spurred On By Captain’s Absence

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What’s The Problem?

Well let’s start with the good. Arsenal easily beat Spurs yesterday with goals from Adebayor and two penalty kicks from stand-in captain Gilberto Silva. All the goals had slight contentious issues but it was about time we had a bit of luck go our way with some of the poor decisions we’ve had in recent weeks.

And the run or either 3-0 wins or 1-1 draws in the league at The Emirates continues!

I’m probably not the only one who thinks this, but with Henry obviously not fully fit this season Arsenal simply play better without him – with the fantastic win at Old Trafford and yesterdays game show.

Now don’t get me wrong, Henry is a phenomenal player – but playing without having a break is effecting his performances. And the guy is under a lot of stress being the captain and seemingly taking responsibility for the entire team – it’s no wonder Arsene wants to give him a few weeks rest.

Who else got to the final of the Champions League and the World Cup?

There are a lot of reports about the ‘Bust Up’ between Henry and Wenger but the official word from Henry is that he is just upset from not being able to play due to injury:

“It is true that yesterday I left the training ground upset.

“There wasn’t any bust-up, but I was simply upset because I am not playing today and I am going to be out for a little while.

“I have been saying since the beginning of the season that I am not fully fit and people didn’t have to know, but now people have to know.”

And with Henry supporting the club yesterday then you can see the media are making up another story to sell their papers.

The fact is Henry is a player who gives everything on the pitch and when he can’t then he’s going to be upset.

But Wenger is doing the right thing and waiting until Henry is ready to return – there’s no point in playing when he isn’t fully fit and the team suffers because of it. And without Henry, the team seem to play with more passion, knowing they don’t have the inspirational Henry to fall back on.

The Chelsea game is going to be very interesting and I have a sneaky feeling we can nick another win there.

After all, we can beat the top teams without any problems – it’s just the rubbish teams we can’t beat!

 

Why Thierry Henry Will Never Win The ‘World Player of the Year’ Award…

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The simple answer is fancy tricks.

Don’t believe me? Then look at the previous winners of the award:

2005 – Ronaldinho, 2004 – Ronaldinho, 2003 – Zidane,
2002 – Ronaldo,2001 – Luis Figo, 2000 – Zidane,
1999 – Rivaldo, 1998 – Zidane, 1997 – Ronaldo, 1996 – Ronaldo…

And the list goes on.

If you watch this video here you will see what the players who have dominated the award over the last 10 years (Ronaldinho, Zidane & Ronaldo) are all remembered for fancy tricks and skills.

That is part of the game that FIFA and many organisations want to promote to the World – the beautiful game.

Don’t get me wrong, Henry is a skillful player and when in full force is one of the best players in the World to watch – but he doesn’t do stepovers, roulettes or even the flipflap.

Skills and tricks are what win awards – not goals, assists or team play. Otherwise Henry would have won the previous 3 years awards by a country mile.

It’s not for record-breaking goalscoring or consistency.

That’s far too boring…

Aside from tricks another big factor to winning the World Player of the Year Award is winning the World Cup or the European Cup. When Brazil won the World Cup Ronaldo & Rivaldo were credited with being the best and when France won it Zidane got the same recognition.

Henry might have been in both the World Cup and Champions League Finals but without winning them he doesn’t have a hope in picking up the biggest personal award.

If Titi had better luck and came out winners for both of those competitions you wouldn’t even be wondering who would win the Ballon d’Or or the FIFA World Player of the Year.

Fin.