An opening comment received by email ffrom Gooner 48...
In his recent editorial Kevin Whitcher wrote that ‘…. unless you have a player of Bergkamp’s ilk that can take some of the distributive weight off of Cesc. And that type of player simply isn’t at the club right now’.
Whereas I totally agreed with the rest of the editorial I’m not sure that the above statement is entirely true. I reckon that Henry could and maybe should be our new Bergkamp. Could there be a better support striker and do we have anyone who already makes more assists than Titi? Great players need big challenges and a slight change of role for Theirry could be the answer to quite how Wenger makes his latest refinement to our formation work most effectively. It would also give Henry a fresh challenge which I get the impression he might be seeking. Henry clearly is not the perfect piece in the jigsaw to play as the lone front man in a 4-5-1, a 4-4-1-1 or even a 4-1-4-1. He plays brilliantly in a 4-4-2 but can’t act as a heavyweight battering ram who runs all day to make space for others whilst playing a lot of the match with his back to goal. Too often of late Henry has slowed the game down when he has got the ball in deep positions. Although this has nothing to do with his pace and quite possibly has had something to do with his injuries he will slow one day. They all do. Quite how to utilise his skills when that happens will be a problem but one that might be solved if he were to permanently drift off a main striker and have a free role behind a front man in a creative capacity.
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