I WONDER if time will be as kind to Thierry Henry’s captaincy as it was to Patrick Vieira’s.

While wearing the armband, few were ever convinced of Vieira as a worthy replacement for Tony Adams. But two years after his departure, in many quarter’s the Frenchman’s tenure attracts measured approval instead of condemnation.

I don’t think opinions of Henry will change as much. That said, I suspect the fact the way he inspired a team languishing in the league and odds on to be knocked out of the Champions League in February to within 15 minutes of European glory and a fourth placed finish will be looked upon more favourably in time.

We shall see. Before I move on to discussing the next captain, a thought: would an Arsenal captain in 2007 retain the armband after being sentenced to four months for crashing his car into a house while drunk? I suspect not.

There are four vaguely possible choices for Arsenal captain: Gilberto Silva, Kolo Toure, Cesc Fabregas and Jens:

Gilberto

Pros: Excelled when wearing the armband last season. Usually keeps his head when others are losing theirs. Knows the job.
Cons: More than anyone epitomised our malaise in the league in 05/06. Is he inspirational enough? How long will he be around for?
Verdict: A safe choice but possibly too short term.

Kolo Toure

Pros: Ultra committed, genuinely proud to wear the shirt, years ahead of him, has never expressed any thoughts of leaving and apart from one moment of madness last season, not one to lose his head.
Cons: How would the responsibility of captaincy affect his game? Would a player who relies so much on tremendous strength and pace be able to offer tactical leadership?
Verdict: Experienced but not old, passionate but not mad, the question marks are nothing more than you would ask of many players. An excellent choice.

Cesc Fabregas

Pros: Probably now the best player at the club, the heartbeat of the new side, years ahead of him, fiery.
Cons: Still too hot headed, could not be trusted to calm others when it all kicks off. Too young to be captain. Too likely to be involved in summer transfer speculation. Would the armband in fact only increase his sense of importance and therefore speed up his departure?
Verdict: It would be too much, too young. It’s a harsh but salient point that for all his brilliance, all Cesc has won is a Cup Final on penalties. Needs to be led and not be leader. Yet. I’m unconvinced the armband would do anything to eradicate his youthful indiscretions. Only time will.

Jens

Pros: Vastly experienced, on form his brilliance can inspire others. Will always stand up for his team.
Cons: Prone to lose it, appalling discipline, do we want impressionable youngsters copying his behaviour?
Verdict: Jens is mad. Therefore he must be ruled out. Put simply, the cons speak for themselves.

So there you have it. I’d plump for Toure, with Gilberto remaining as vice-captain.

IT is time to move on.

And for me the first stage of that is to get some closure on Thierry Henry.

Nearly two years ago I compiled a list of his greatest goals to celebrate breaking Ian Wright’s goal-scoring record. You can view the full piece here by scrolling down to 20th October. In order, they were:

10) Chelsea (h) 12/04. Unbreachable defence cracked in thirty seconds.
9) Bayern Munich (h) 03/05. Brilliant control and finish against water-tight defence.
8) Manchester City (h) 01/04. The bending howitzer.
7) Sparta Prague (a) 10/05. A 360 degree turn and a swerver to break the record.
6) Inter Milan (a) 11/03. Made Zanetti look like a park player.
5) Spurs (h) 11/02. He ran and he ran and he ran.
4) Charlton (h) 10/04. A backhell so inspired the cameraman missed it.
3) Liverpool (h) 04/04. 2-1 down, 3-2 up and the title won.
2) Manchester United (h) 10/00. The volley of volleys.
1) West Ham (a) 08/02. Perfection.

At the time readers also suggested the final goal in the 5-0 thrashing of Leeds and the one against Chelsea in the cup where he rounded Cudicini 30 yards out.

Since the article you would have to also mention the free-kick at Wigan, the volley in the 7-0 thrashing of Boro, the winner in Madrid, the wonderful goal he and Cesc forged against Liverpool the week after, the magnificent and crucial equaliser against Spurs and last season’s magical strike at Blackburn.

There are probably countless others too.

What were your favourite moments? And can anyone pull together YouTube links of all the ones mentioned above?

Once all this is done, then I suggest it is time to move on.

Will we ever see a
better Arsenal player?

JUST for a minute, forget about the transfer.

While you’re at it, forget the sulks, the moods, the arrogance and the ego. Forget Barcelona, forget Dein, forget Kroenke, forget Wenger’s future, forget Fabregas.

Forget next season, forget the season after that and the one after that too. Shove all those things to one side.

Then think back over the past eight years. Go and fetch all those memories from the recesses of your brain. That done, does recalling what Thierry Henry did fill you with a warm glow? Does it soothe your pain on this dark morning?

If so, lucky you. Personally speaking, I’m gutted. My mouth is strangely dry, my footballing soul numbed. For all my Arsenal obsessiveness, fotball very, very rarely negatively intrudes on my actual mood. Last night it did and this morning feels no better.

And why?

Because right now I can’t envisage living to see the day when I turn to a fellow Gooner and say: “This guy is even better than Henry.”

It’s not that I’m about to die. It’s just he was that damn good. We actually had the best player in the world. I know everyone says that. But we really did. When we sang it, we knew it was true.

He was unbelievable frankly. Miles better than anyone else in Britain for so long that unless he was around four times as good as his nearest contender they stopped giving him the awards. He was consistently brilliant and brilliantly consistent. Utterly incomparable.

If it sounds like I’ve been struck down by superlative diahorrea then I’m sorry. But this truly is the end of an era. You don’t have to have liked him. You don’t have to thank him. But you can’t deny what he was.

And now it’s all gone. What I’d give even now for one more fleeting moment of Henry magic in an Arsenal shirt. Alas, it is gone forever and it’s as if something has died. However below his best he was last season, we speak now of Henry at Arsenal in the past tense. It hurts.

Now I’ve said all that, it’s time to look at all those things I said to brush aside for a minute.

Now, personally, I’d have much rather had a fit, happy Henry around next season. But the tragedy is what I’ve outlined above, not the fact we will be without him for 07-08. Last season was hardly vintage but it did show that in some ways we had learnt to live without him. So life goes on and it’s true - no player is bigger than the club. Maybe the theory that his presence was stunting other players will even be proved true.

Taking off my Arsenal hat for a second, if I’m honest it’s the right move at the right time for him. I don’t suppose all those know alls who accused him of bottling it 12 months ago will be too loud this time around. I know people will bemoan the fee, but frankly it matters little and you can be fairly certain what is reported is wrong anyway. These things often are: the contract he signed last summer was actually essentially for seven years rather than four.

In one sense it would be nice to think his powers have gone and we’ve cashed in at the right time. But really I’d hate to see him fail. On which note, no doubt there either will or have been things done and said and things that will rankle with some fans for whatever reason. The fact is that a transfer like this is always going to be messy and it’s absurd to let bitterness over the minutiae of the transfer cloud the good wishes we should have for the player.

Of course, there will be those wondering how he could leave after pledging his future repeatedly so recently. Well, sudden change does happen. As to why exactly he went, we may never know - partly because Henry may never know other than the fact it just felt right. All the usual stuff about Dein, fourth place, Wenger’s contract etc have been mentioned. But long after Dein’s departure he was still pledging his future to the club.

A good source has told me about other things that I can’t print because legally I can’t substantiate them that have happened over the past 12 months that would likely have affected things. Hard as it is to believe, life for a footballer is sometimes more complicated than signing-on fees and bonuses. (Ashley Cole excluded).

No doubt there will be countless parallells drawn between this and the Vieira transfer. To me they look very different. Wenger shunted Vieira out the door whereas for all the world it appeared he intended Henry to be at the club next season.

But the truth is he could not stop him leaving. And rightly so frankly. The rules may be different for footballers but who can begrudge a man who has spent the eight best years of his working life in one place the opportunity to go elsewhere?

Assuming the transfer goes through on Monday, attention must turn to replacements. Personally, I wouldn’t go for Anelka. It’s nothing to do with attitude or anything. I just don’t think he’s that good. Michael Owen on the other hand has scored goals everywhere he has played, has a great attitude and is available for £9 million.

Neither, however, is Thierry Henry. Will any Arsenal player ever be?

IT’S Minister for Europe apparently. He’s going to have to choose between it and the Sligo Rovers job.

I don’t normally get irked by these things because they are part of life and there is more behind many stories than we as fans are often prepared to acknolwedge. But this introduction from the Times of all places really pissed me off:

This is said purely on the basis that Real Madrid might want him to be their manager.

Now, apologies if my grasp of English is not what I thought it was, but I’d have thought that a man who:

a) Already manages a football club
b) Has never broken a contract in his life
c) Has said over and over and over and over again that he will be Arsenal manager next season

is anything but one of the leading contenders to replace Fabio Capello, irrespective of how much Real Madrid might want him.

NINE days after my last post I’m still here and there is still nothing happening.

The only thing of any vague interest that did actually occur was Thierry Henry helping launch some club tie-in with a watch company earlier in the week. Now, the fact the man was not available for interviews was hardly reassuring. But equally you have to ask why Ebel would want all their promotional stuff to be done with a player who is supposedly going to be out the door next week.

The other point is that Henry, RVP and Walcott should now all be back in training, ahead of the rest of the players in a fortnight.

On the issue of possible replacements, I wonder if anyone will eventually realise that the reason they all sound so crap is nothing to do with a derth of talent out there or anything like that. Instead, it is because Henry is so good. In years gone by we’d have been delighted to have signed many of these candidates. Now they sound decidedly second best.

Those who would dispense with Henry tomorrow should ponder that.

There is the Kroenke stuff too - but again we await to see what is actually happening.