The King Is Back

The King is back! Indeed what a day. Thierry Henry’s return to Arsenal for a two-month loan spell from New York Red Bulls has been an expected inevitability for quite a while now. Finally, earlier today, it has come to fruitition. Definitely as an Arsenal fan I’m more than thrilled. Whether rightly or wrongly, that’s quite another matter for another day.

 Thierry Daniel Henry. Arsenal’s favorite son and one of the best (if not the best) players to ever don the cannon shirt is making his proverbial second coming. When he painfully bid farewell to the club’s fans in 2007, no one quite thought he would return to play. I mean, do they ever come back? By that time he felt he had achieved everything he ever could at the club and that the one (Champions League title) that remained, he couldn’t at the club. He eventually moved on to Barcelona and became a European Champion.

 He now comes back to a club that is not at the level that he probably would have envisaged when he left. During his time, Arsenal was always a title contender every season. Not anymore. We are realistically out of the running for the league title, with only the Cup competitions to pin our hopes on. Henry at his time was the club’s foremost striker with others coming behind him in the pecking order. Now roles are reversed and he will be playing second fiddle to the club’s captain and the league’s most prolific marksman, Robin Van Persie. Can he handle it? Can he perform under these quite new and unfamiliar conditions?

 Question is, what role will he be playing for the club this time round? Van Persie is undoubtedly the lead striker so that role for Henry is out of question. The manager himself reiterated that the veteran’s main reason for signing was to help out. Since Gervinho and Marouane Chamakh are due to leave for the Africa Cup of Nations, it was felt that Henry should return and help the remaining forwards bear the goal scoring burden. The general feeling is that he won’t lead the line, but will make cameos maybe as a supporting forward.

 Henry was the Premiership’s and Arsenal’s premier forward and scored goals like he was born to do it. Times have changed though. He’s inevitably older, and less pacier. He’s not the same complete striker of the Highbury era. So why sign him? I can’t answer this as I’m no Arsene Wenger. Well, no doubt he will be a positive experience to the young dressing room, and more so to people like Theo Walcott who are trying to cut it on the big stage. He will also provide leadership and that calming influence that the team so badly needs at times.

 Will his signing have a negative effect on Van Persie? That seems the most pertinent question among fans and foes alike. Difficult to tell, this one is. I tend to think that it should in fact be of great help to the Dutchman that the legend is back. True, focus would shift from him to Henry, but the best of strikers respond well to pressure and baggage being lifted off their shoulders. Robin could as well get tips to further sharpen his already world class finishing from the master himself. And of course Wenger would afford more to rest Van Persie often. So really this should not be a concern at all. Barring a calamitous injury, Robin Van Persie is still bang on form and can only get more ruthless in front of goal.

 What about Thierry’s reputation and legendary status? Are they at risk? Partly yes, but mostly, no. Really in all fairness his accomplishments in his first 8 years at the club cannot be watered down in just 2 months. His record goal haul of 226 goals in 370 games tells its own story and so does each of the thousands of memories that he brought to the club. That audacious turn and chip over Barthez, that European night at the Bernabeu when he owned the ‘galacticos’, the famous field length run, goal and sensational knee-slide celebration in the North London derby will stay etched in our minds forever. Not forgetting the famous ‘who’s your daddy?’ celebration when he almost single-handedly brought down Inter at the San Siro. Those were simply stuff of legends that not many can reproduce. In a nut-shell, his iconic status and reputation stays and will stay intact.

 We welcome back the king once more for one more dance. Highbury was always his stage, and Emirates just a bit-part but the newer ground gets one more chance to bear witness to Henry’s class, artistry and in Wenger’s words, super quality. It should not be denied. No, it shouldn’t. I remember once during a Champions League match against Spartak Moscow (I think), the game was goal-less, and Arsenal was getting desperate. Wenger threw in Henry from the bench. With time running out, Ashley Cole made a run on the left and crossed and Henry was there to powerfully head in the winner. The relief at the stadium was evident, and the commentator captured it in the words that I’ll never forget, ‘When they needed the top man, the top man rose for them’. May he rise for us once more. Long live Henry. Long live the King.

 The Dug Out.

The problem with United

I love Manchester United Football Club. It is the greatest team in the world, Barcelona, Madrid and all those others can go shove it. However, 2011 has been a topsy-turvy year for the Red Devils. Winning the record 19^th Premier League title and knocking the Scousers off their f**king perch was bloody awesome. So was reaching the UEFA Champions League final at Wembley. What was not so awesome was the capitulation to those Catalan midgets. What got me riled up was THAT 1-6 loss to City. And what got me pulling out my hair was elimination from the second easiest group in the UEFA Champions League (Barcelona and Milan had the easiest group, seriously who were Vitoria Plzen and BATE Borisov?). The last straw was elimination from the Carling Cup by a team that had a longer goal drought collectively than Andy Carroll and Fernando Torres. Which begs the question, what exactly is the problem with United?

The answers to this question are as varied as the number of people you ask. Some say Sir Alex Ferguson has lost his touch. Others say we are suffering from the Arsenal disease i.e. too much youth. Some point out to the lack of midfield creativity, others blame the owners. Based on recent form, it must be the 10 injuries. I hold it is a combination of all the above and much more.

Youth: In 1996, Alan Hansen (former Liverpool captain now TV pundit) was made to gobble up a huge slice of humble pie when he exclaimed after United’s loss to Villa on the opening day of the season, “You can’t win anything with kids!” That team won the Double that year, 3 years later they won the Treble. Those “kids” are among the three greatest teams to have come out of an academy (the others being the Ajax side of 1995 and the current Barcelona crop). Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes, the Neville brothers, Nicky Butt and David Beckham all became world class players. The current side is a throwback to that era. David De Gea, Phil Jones, Danny Welbeck, Tom Cleverley, Chris Smalling, Federico Macheda and the da Silva twins are all under-21 internationals for their respective countries. Add to that list Nani, Anderson, Javier Hernandez, Jonny Evans, Darron Gibson: all players under 25 and full internationals. Ashley Young, Wayne Rooney and Antonio Valencia are about 25-27. This is indeed a young side; in fact the team that hammered Arsenal 8-2 was averagely younger than that Arsenal side which included Sczezny, Coquelin, Miquel, Jenkinson, Oxlade-Chamberlain and Walcott.

But with youth comes naïveté and inexperience, and that is what United are suffering from. Jones is a fine defender, no doubt, but his marauding runs upfront cost the team, his positional awareness is way off, especially in a league with ruthless strikers like Aguero and van Persie lurking about in your penalty area. De Gea is a fine young keeper, but he has a lot to learn. The mistakes against Manchester City in the Community Shield, West Bromwich and Blackburn in the Premier League, Benfica and Basel in the Champions League cannot be wished away that easily. The da Silva twins are too rash and impetuous in their play; they belong to the Paul Scholes school of” great player, can’t tackle, but will attempt to do so and pray I don’t get carded”. Roy Keane was right, these young players need to buck up their ideas and get to know what it means to play for United. Youth cannot be used as an excuse every time the team comes up short, come on Arsenal have taught us this!

The midfield: The United midfield is in crisis. Many point out to the lack of an old school creative midfielder since the retirement of Scholes, and have fronted Wesley Sneijder and Luka Modric as replacements. However, I contend that it is not creativity that is the problem, rather, United lack a combative DEFENSIVE midfielder. Rooney and Young have played as the creative midfielder for England in their Euro 2012 qualifiers due to Gerrard’s absence. In fact, Young’s best position is not on the left, but just behind the strikers, his stellar performances for both England and Aston Villa attest to this fact. A roll call of United’s central midfield: Fletcher, Carrick, Gibson, Anderson, Cleverley. Of these, only Fletcher is a natural defensive (‘destroyer’) midfielder. Unfortunately, Fletcher is out indefinitely due to disease. Jones can evolve to be the midfield general that Keane once was, but that is a work in progress, and judging by the league table, time is a luxury United cannot afford. That is why it WAS a big mistake to let Owen Hargreaves leave on a Bosman to join (of all the teams in the universe) City. Nowhere was it more evident than the last game, the loss to Blackburn. Playing Carrick as a centre back and Rafael as a defensive midfielder is asking for trouble, even if you are playing against Blackburn. Yakubu’s second goal is all the evidence you need to show that was reckless. The best piece of transfer business Ferguson would do this January would be to get Lassana Diarra to Old Trafford. Diarra is combative and more importantly, can tackle (unlike Carrick and Anderson). Plus he isn’t getting game time in Madrid due to the Khedira-Alonso pairing in midfield. Or he could accelerate Paul Pogba’s ascension to the first team-the lad reminds me of one Patrick Vieira.

The owners: The Glazers have hocked the club deep in debt. The proceeds from Ronaldo’s sale to Madrid as well as all available revenue go to servicing the principal and interest repayments on the loan to purchase United. This means no proper transfers in the near future. This summer was a fluke.

The injuries: This is unfortunate really. Losing an inspirational skipper to a season long injury is devastating. Add to that list all available central defenders and most of the midfield. If this isn’t a crisis, I don’t know what is.

The manager: Sir Alex Ferguson has done it all. 25 years at the helm of Manchester United, with 12 Premier League titles, 5 FA Cups, 4 League Cups, 2 UEFA Champions Leagues; nobody can deny that he is one of the managers of all time. But in 2011, his tactical nous has been suspect, including but not limited to the defeat by Barcelona, where a midfield pairing of Carrick and Giggs was proved efficient but too slow and the casual attitude to crucial games (most notably against Benfica and Basel). Of course his handling of the players cannot be faulted, in light of the Mancini-Tevez saga, and especially the decision to axe Rooney was a good one. Ferguson needs to rediscover the touch that was there before that embarrassing loss to City before it is too late.

Having said all that, the problems at United could be its greatest assets: a wily and experienced manager, players with a never-say-die attitude and the future in front of them, wise heads in the dressing room, a global marketing machine, huge revenues and the most passionate fans in the world. Glory glory Man United as the Reds go marching on on on!!!