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.