Why can’t all Arsenal players be like a young Thierry Henry?

All older Arsenal fans get a large dose of nostalgia when thinking about our current team and comparing them to the all-conquering Invincibles, and wishing that our latest crop had the same confidence and work ethic as players like Dennis Bergkamp and Thierry Henry.

We all know how good our non-Flying Dutchman was, but he has revealed that he was amazed with the way Thierry Henry was always trying to be the very best at everything he did. Bergkamp told Arsenal.com: “You come across those sort of players, you just realise that they that have so much talent,”

“Maybe sometimes he was thinking, ‘OK, to be the top scorer of the league it will take me 60% or 70% of my game, I want to do more.’

“He was that good at the time, he was developing his own game as well and part of that was assisting other players. He could really enjoy that as well and in some training sessions you would see him defend like you’ve never seen before.

“He always found a challenge in the game itself, whether it was assisting, goal-scoring or defending. If people would say one of the opponents was very quick, I guess he was thinking, ‘OK, let’s see how quick he is because I want to be the quickest.’

“That’s how he played his game, he was always looking for a challenge, always looking to become better and to show everyone how good he was. That’s ideal to have such a player in your team.”

Don’t we all wish we had a young Thierry Henry in the side right now, not just scoring goals but also helping to instill confidence in the youngsters coming through to be trying as hard as he did.

I would say that the most promising youngster we have like that is Gabriel Martinelli, and hopefully Bukayo Saka could also progress on those lines, but either of them will still have a long way to go before emulating the skill of the great Thierry Henry or Dennis Bergkamp…

Tags Bergkamp Henry

6 Comments

  1. That’s the way the new generation think. They just need to do enough to get picked for the game each week. They should let three or four passionate fans in during training. Some motivational speakers to try and get them to understand what we want to see, fight till there guts fall out if nessasary and that there capable of beating anyone.

  2. This shows how vitally imoprtant CHARACTER is. All real to players ned both sublime talent AND great character. The lack of character latter is what stops OZIL being an Arsenal all time great. Mamnyb players havegreat character but stop short of having SUBLIME talent but still have massive careers. Prime examples are PAT RICE, JOHN RADFORD from way back and more recently Kolo Toure, Lauren and Ray Parlour. In the present squad only Ozil and Auba have sublime talent but neither has overmuch character and Ozil practically none at all, at least not on the PITCH, where it matters to fans and our club. The single player with most obvious character, which stands out a mile, is MARTINELLI.

  3. Been reading a bit from Dennis lately, I liked hearing him speak on the famous front players over in Italy who their coach had ropes tied to so that they all moved around the pitch as one. Rijkaard, MVB and the others.

    Front players today are all mostly dribblers trying to come inside to shoot, a lot of the strikers are coming from that type of early development

    Ozil could’ve been interesting had he seen himself as a goalscorer early on in his development. Could possibly have rivaled Messi with ingenuity had he been totally selfish while enjoying the bustling of the nets.

  4. He won world come at 21 years old before to join be first answer.

    He was hungry, lower wage in a club with ambition then.

    We have players as saka, Niles, Willock, Rowe, Nelson, Martinelli who are young,hungry with ambition. You see it when they on the pitch.

    If they are not given enough time, besid played out of position cant fulfill development, they are waisted, lose all their spirit and ambition.

    We did not need Torreira nor Gendouzi but keep develloping Niles and Willock, nor Ceballos but keep Rowe progress, nor Pepe when we saw Nelson impress in Germany and quickly brought him back for that.

    He was doing great, immulating his boy Nelson, looking really good, mentally strong & building up.

    Bring him back to play Pepe ahead of him , not playing regular football leads to injuries…. It was a bad year instead to take it where he left it from there at least, we brought him back he became average looking.because limited to play and enjoy football.

    I feel terrible for Niles played out of position, then benched.for not being good enough with a Lazy Pepe not making any effort to defend, leaving Niles with 2 men.

    Saka was played as a LB, but had Xhaka rotating, covering, allowing him to play as a winger he is. Defensively he is not as good as Niles but a top winger which he was able to display and stay in team

    He deserve and first choice by far as a LW. .But instead to play him there, we have Auba there to make room for someone in center (Laca, Nketiah…)

    Ridiculous formation and choices from Arteta.

    Saka is needed and best and only natural Left winger we have.

    Why not play a defender (Mustafi…) as a LB, secure the back, help CBs too, Saka plays as winger?

    Arteta has to make that choice, as to play Auba in center or bench Pepe and let Auba on RW he is also familiar with.

    If no defender available, rather play Xhaka as a LB who is more suited to defend than a winger. But Xhaka won’t accept to play LB, a youngster will…But who is making these calls? Arteta!

    Saka sees how Niles been treated and how he is used same way; do ybeforeou blame him for being cautious to extend his contract?

    Reality, we supposed to be a top club but have an assistant coach experimenting instead to do so with a midtable club, not make us one.

  5. Thierry Henry or any player can’t cope with messy Arsenal, Ask to Auba and most players if they happy. Not players fault but no one to guide and no game plan,crazy formation they can’t cope with. Can’t compare

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