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…
