For his last few seasons at Arsenal Thierry Henry was the best player in England, and arguably the world. Over the past couple of years Arsenal have been praised for the quality and style of their football, but have often flattered to deceive in the title race.
This season they seem to be serious challengers to Chelsea and Manchester United and have their best chance to win the big one since they last did so in 2004.
The reason that Arsenal are a better team without Henry was demonstrated perfectly in their three nil demolition of London neighbours Fulham. Two of the goals were scored by Emanuel Adabayor the 6’4″ Togo international striker.
It was not the fact that Adabayor scored the goals that demonstrates the difference; it was the nature of how they were scored. Both goals were good old fashioned centre forward’s headers converted from crosses from wide players. Prior to this season, Arsenal rarely, if ever, scored such a goal.
Despite the obvious brilliance of Henry, teams knew that they could stifle Arsenal by ‘getting in their face’ and sitting deep, not allowing Henry to exploit his pace. Teams could be sure that Arsenal would try to pass the ball into the net, and would work predominantly through the middle of the field, and always look to get Henry on the ball. Their opponents could flood the midfield and play narrow. They could man mark Henry, and if done successfully, which was no easy task, Arsenal could be made to look ordinary.
This season Arsenal are a much more multi-dimensional side. They still pass the ball swiftly and sharply. They can still pass the ball into the goal, but there are other strings to their bow. They can now knock the ball into the channels where Adabayor is a willing runner. More importantly, they can get the ball wide and deliver crosses, knowing that the big striker will be challenging for the ball.
Adabayor has scored twenty-seven goals for Arsenal in sixty-three games. His record this season shows fifteen goals in twenty-three starts. This shows that he has relished the extra responsibility placed on him since Henry’s departure.
The whole of the Arsenal midfield have also responded positively to the loss of their talisman. Rosicky and Hleb, who both looked a little short last season, are now performing like the world class players they were believed to be and have chipped in with seven and four goals respectively.
Fabrigas has taken on the mantle of being the Gunners’ best player and he has looked magnificent in taking his personal goal tally to eleven. Even Flamini, a bit part player in the Henry years, has flourished since the star left for Barcelona.
Last season and before Arsenal only seemed to have a Plan A. Pass the ball around until Henry finds space and give him the ball. Now, Arsenal have a Plan A, B and C, and have therefore become a much more difficult team to play against.
It was hard to see how any team could be better without Thierry Henry, but that is just what has happened down at The Emirates.
nice article…
but i just think that the same thing was said by a lot of people at the start of the season and as usual u arsenal fans are sticking on to it…
we are all agreed with your article… but please be more creative in writing fresh articles…. Sick nd tired of hearing the same thing over and over again…
Anirudh,
Sorry to be so boring!
One thing though, I’m certainly not an Arsenal fan.
Graham.
Hleb is our best player. It annoys me when bloggers say Fabregas is the best and most important. Hleb is the guy who makes things tick.
Anyone who claims to be a Arsenal supporter but doesn’t acknowledge Fabregas as the gunners best player clearly doesn’t understand football. Sure, Fabregas hasn’t been at his sparkling best in the last few games. But that’s only because he set the bar so high during the first half of the season when he went on a goal scoring (and goal creating) tear. Hleb, Rosicky, Adebayor are all good players, but the creative spark in the Gunner arsenal comes from the brillant spaniard. He is the one who picks out the passes and engineers the moves. Hleb’s a good winger, but too often he tries to overdoo things and loses possesion. He’s Christiano Ronaldo, without the end product (God, how awful is that to admit). Hleb is probably going to be better then Pires or Ljunberg were for the Gunners, but I doubt he will ever eclipse what Fabregas has been able to do for the team and anybody who thinks otherwise simply hasn’t been watching the same game as the rest of us Arsenal fans!