Is Henry Good or Bad for Arsenal?

There is something about watching Thierry Henry play football. It is very difficult to describe in words his abilities on the pitch. Yes statistics have managed to capture his level of consistency in number of goals scored and number of assists made on the football pitch but even that is but a small fraction of the complete man.

This one time I was watching a game with some friends and as we sat there watching the graceful peformance by this elegant player one could not help but go "oooh!!! ahhh!!! Sort of like that melt in your mouth feeling that you get from creme brulee or from sipping a 1982 Chateau Mounton Rothschild Pauillac

If you remember watching Tiger Woods play at the Masters in Augusta 2005, where Tiger seemed to be pulling off rabbits from his hat at every hole, I mean to this day I still cannot believe what I was seeing when he did what he did on the 16th hole. Incredible!

For me, over the past 5/6 years I have seen Henry pull off things that, granted I have seen elsewhere in football but it is the nature in which he pulls off his trickery, his one touch pass, his vision, his assists, simplement hors de ce monde.

But having watched his behaviour over the past season I can't help but wonder whether he has become too big a figure/persona at the club. A player of his calibre will feel it is well within his rights to get involved in player transfer dealings and who signs for the club and who doesn't.

At Arsenal, there's 3 immence personalities at the club, one is former Vice Chairman David Dein (who left the club 2 days ago), the manager Arsene Wenger and Thierry Henry as the captain on the field. With the departure of David Dein, Henry is bound to feel compelled to have more say as to who gets signed and who doesn't. This is because at the end of last season when Arsenal lost to FC Barcelona in the Champions League final, Henry signed a new 4 year contract with Arsenal extending his stay at the club. This came after a period of non-committment from him and speculation was rife that Barcelona had put in a £30 Million offer for him. At the time of writing Henry has not played for Arsenal for the past month or so and will not feature in any game until next season because of an injury sustained. (This season he has been very injury prone)

But I revert to a period back in December 2006 where Henry was side lined with injuries and did not play until the new year. During this period, it was said that Henry had actually fallen out with Wenger himself and though I can only speculate as to the reasons behind the fall out, it is possible that this was a clash of ego's and Henry had challenged Wenger's stance on the transferring (signing new players to the club) of players.

From a management/business point of view, Wenger will be best served if he were to get rid of Thierry Henry at the end of the season because he is but a devisive figure in the dressing room and can bring nothing but tension in the club. He is likely to try and rally the players behind him and this could result in mutiny against Wenger which would/could be dangerous. I think this is the same reason Wenger's counterpart at Manchester United, Sir Alex Ferguson had to ship out Ruud Van Nistelroy. It was not because the player could no longer perform for Manchester United, but more to do with the fact that he was the source of tension within the dressing room.
Mind you this is a player (Van Nistelroy) that scored more goals than anyone else at the club. (An average of 25 a season).

So as much as I love to see him play for Arsenal for the rest of his footballing career, I much rather hedge my bets with the Manager himself.