Highbury House

First off, reports suggest that we are interested in Nigerian winger Ahmed Musa, I have never heard of him either but he’s 19 years old, plays for CSKA Moscow and has already played for his national side. Many other clubs are supposed to be looking at him too so if he’s that good, we best act quickly. Ah, we don’t do that do we…..

Other stories in the sports news is that we are considering paying the ‘get out clause’ figure to sign Demba Ba, as are Liverpool but then he wouldn’t want to join a club that has been in deep trouble for racism would he? Another is that Wenger has seen enough of Arshavin and wants to sell him this month. The same paper reports that the sale is the key to our manager buying any new player!

Another rumour going around is that we have shelved any plans to sign Podolski until the summer as we have Thierry Henry all signed and sealed. Well, I honestly don’t believe we had any intention of signing him in the first place so this no doubt is something about nothing.

In fact, apart from Henry, I doubt we’ll sign anyone…

Talking of Henry, onto today’s post:

I’m writing this on Saturday evening, so Messrs Henry has not graced the field yet. I know a lot of you are excited at the prospect of Thierry dancing down the field , his magic dribbling, his electric defence splitting runs and even a good header which has been sadly missing from our team for quite sometime.

I don’t want to be a Killjoy here but don’t expect the old Henry back, the player who once did all those wonderful things stated above.

Henry is now 34 years old, he plays his normal football for New York Red bulls, I am not going to knock the American Football League  but it’s not Premier league is?

Wenger bringing Henry back is in a way a fluke, The Red Bulls are on their break, Thierry wants to keep fit and also visit friends here in England, so the natural thing to do if your 34 years of age and want to stay in football, is to try and keep your fitness up at every opportunity you get.

Don’t get me wrong Thierry is an Arsenal legend, a player that we watched come in as a winger and eventually Wenger saw his future as a central striker and from that day a legend was born. Now Wenger has seen a chance to use him at a time when two of our players are off to the ACON – It’s a chance to use the legends iconic talents of the past one more time….

I Henry doubt will play that roll in the Arsenal team tomorrow, he will probably play the roll that Arshavin has been trying to and get in the hole behind the striker.

I can see a scenario where Walcott will finally get his chance and Thierry right behind him feeding and using Theo’s speed that we all know he has got. In the past Theo has never managed to get the chances that perhaps he should have had by now but without being unkind to Theo, he just hasn’t had the football brain.

With Henry directing, encouraging and also feeding, who knows, Wenger may have found the key to finding the footballing brain that sits somewhere inside Theo Walcott.

Alex Chamberlain is a made to measure replacement for Theo on the wing and personally, I believe he will be better than Theo up front but I think Theo deserves a chance before the young Ox, who would no doubt just be happy to be playing.

Thierry will have his usual swagger  but whether he starts or not, I wouldn’t like to say for sure but I am convinced that will be the way they will play, when both of them are on the field.

I envisage Theo being caught offside many times as he will be eager to impress and balls through from Thierry will be slower than what he would expect.

Theo’s legs go twenty to the dozen but sadly the brain is not connected, maybe our legend can change this but I doubt it.

Then again my brain may be smaller than Theo’s and I’m talking a load of old rubbish, so I suppose we will just have to wait and see.

Leeds will be no pushover and Henry will be a target but at the end of the day, Henry is 34 and their defenders in their twenties, I don’t see too many surprises .

COYG

Written by Steve Palmer