Arsene must sort out Henry & Eboue ASAP
WE CAN only guess what's really going on with Thierry Henry, so here's my guess.
Someone on the board had told Arsene Wenger to sort him out.
Arsene hasn't had the bottle to confront his superstar until now.
But I think they've made him do it. They've made him grasp the nettle. They've made him stop ignoring the elephant in the room.
Maybe the sponsors are unhappy with Henry's behaviour. Maybe the sponsors want the manager to sign more proven players.
Maybe the sponsors are unhappy that AW only wants to do it his way, with pace and gifted foreign kids.
To see Arsene on Match of the Day, taking about the Henry situation, was fascinating.
His face spoke volumes.
His tone of voice spoke further volumes.
He refusal to say more than two lines was the British Library.
THIS WAS something radically new, something we have never seen before.
Until now the Arsenal board has worshipped the ground Arsene Wenger walks on and until now Arsene has worshipped the turf that Thierry Henry prances on.
But maybe the board don't want Arsenal to spend another season struggling for fourth place in the league.
On Sunday, Amy Lawrence reported this in The Observer :
Half an hour after the final whistle, Wenger struggled to emulate his compatriot's high spirits when conversation turned from a comfortable 3-0 win to Henry. Habitually loath to criticise his own players when there is another excuse to lean on, Wenger's unease was conspicuous and did little to suggest the 'Thierry bust-up' headlines were the pure fiction Henry would have us believe.
'I want to sit down with him and tell him what I expect of him when he has recovered,' said Wenger, with conspicuous iciness. How did he feel about Henry giving statements about how he felt? 'I am not happy and not unhappy,' said Wenger. 'He is tired and needs to take time to prepare to play. He cannot rest for five days and then come straight back without preparing properly and play at the level the players did against Tottenham. I don't want to talk more about it. I want to give a lot of credit to the team and the rest is internal matters.'
With conspicuous iciness?
BLIMEY !
Tell him what I expect of him?
Henry DOESN'T KNOW what's expected of him?
Is this multi-millionaire flaneur soaring so high in endorsement heaven that mere mortals can't communicate with him ?
Incredibly, Henry was on the pitch after the game, sharing glory he didn't deserve to share.
He was totally out of order to go on the pitch. If he wants to congratulate his team he should do that in private, away from the cameras.
Arsene said, "That was his own initiative."
Over the last five years I've watched Thierry Henry take narcissism to a level I've never seen before in football. He has taken narcissism to a level I didn't know existed.
A reader wrote to us last week about The Wisdom of Crowds.
On Saturday, as Arsenal strolled to a surprisingly easy 3-0 win over Tottenham, something unusual happened. Or, rather, didn't happen. It was the first time that Arsenal fans did not sing Henry's name. That's right : they didn't sing his name once.
LOOKS to me as if the directors have insisted that the manager stops pussyfooting around a superstar who is not delivering.
Just a shame that AW didn't give Henry a reality-check years ago.
Henry will be out for a month. And that is OK. The team plays better without him.
IT'S ALSO A SHAME that Eboue is not as humble and steady as his friend Kolo Toure.
Eboue was throwing wobblies when anybody touched him -and that is pathetic.
At the end, after Robbie Keane elbowed him in the body, Toure and Fabregas had to calm Eboue down. When you're winning 3-0, and enjoying a walkover against a Spurs team who didn't turn up, why get agitated ? The game's over in two minutes and you've earned your three points.
So it's time for Arsene to tell his right back, "Cut that out. Football is a contact sport, people get whacked in every game, often accidentally. Cut those tantrums out. Grow up ! The next time you do that I will take you off and put Justin Hoyte on."
WHAT ABOUT WEDNESDAY NIGHT, Matchday 6 in the so-called Champions League ?
A team that can thrash Spurs 3-0 might be able to draw 1-1 in Porto on Wednesday night.
If Arsenal win they will have beaten Man United, Spurs and Porto without Thierry Henry.
If they lose it might be a good thing in the long term.
It would allow them to put right what is going wrong. No one player is a team or a club. If Thierry Henry is not performing he should not be in the team. If he was at Manchester United, Chelsea or Liverpool he would have been dropped two months ago.
It would allow Arsenal to concentrate on finishing above Portsmouth, Liverpool, Reading and Aston Villa.
Long-term, who knows what will happen at the club?
West Ham was sold after Aston Villa was sold after Man United was sold after Chelsea was sold.
Liverpool will soon be bought by the Maktoum family of Dubai.
After Liverpool, who's next ?
I don't know but I'm fairly sure chief shareholder Danny Fiszman won't be around after Arsene Wenger goes.
Dec 3, 2006