Thierry Daniel Henry was not a number nine in the traditional sense. Nor could you brand him a deeper-lying forward.
“He can do things Ronaldo can't,” former Arsenal forward Alan Smith once observed. “When he's in the mood there's no stopping him. He is like no other striker.”
Henry could play the short-passing game, providing the coup de grace to an intricate team move but could just as easily pick the ball up on the halfway line and plot a solo path to the opposition goal. And his assist tally was as impressive as any specialist creative midfieder.
London had seen nothing like him before, and has had nobody coming close to comparison since.
The Parisian combined an Olympic sprinter’s pace with herculean strength, samba-style skill and every conceivable kind of finish. From the ferocious to the finessed, from the simple to the sublime, from free-kicks and acrobatic improvisations to cheeky flicks - his repertoire was unrivalled and his effortless application of those gifts unparalleled.
His Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger once offered: “What makes him special? He has a mixture of physical talent and technical ability, as well as remarkable intelligence and above all a great passion for the game.”
Henry’s path to Highbury was a trophy-laden one. In fact, he accumulated silverware with the same speed and consistency he showed on the pitch throughout his career.
Having broken into the first-team at AS Monaco as a teenager under Wenger’s tutelage in the mid-nineties, Henry won the French championship in 1997 and helped the club to the Champions League semi-finals in 1998 before scoring three goals for France as they staged and secured the World Cup that summer. And all before he’d celebrated his 21st birthday.
In January 1999, Henry signed for Italian giants Juventus but failed to settle in Turin and jumped at the chance of a reunion with Wenger at Arsenal in August of that year. He was unceremoniously dubbed the ‘French Perry Groves’ in some quarters for supposedly having little more than pace to supplement his game.
And after a slow start to life in the Gunners line-up, often occupying the right-wing berth, Henry was manoeuvred to form the focal point of the team’s attack and once he’d broken his scoring duck against Southampton at the Dell in September 1999, he went on to score a further 225 goals in all competitions to become the club’s all-time leading goal-scorer.
Having reached the UEFA Cup Final with Arsenal in 2000, Henry added the European Championship crown with France to add to his burgeoning array of medals. Three FA Cups, two Premier League titles – including an unprecedented unbeaten league campaign in 2004 - and skippering his side to a Champions League Final appearance in 2006 highlighted his time at Highbury.
In the summer of 2007, Henry realised a dream he had harboured since marvelling at a Diego Maradona-inspired Barcelona in his youth by joining the Catalan club. He went on to win the Champions League, two La Liga titles and the FIFA World Club Cup crown as well as countless other, more minor cups to complete a stunning collection of the game’s biggest prizes.
“There is only one word to describe Henry - a nightmare,” former Chelsea goalkeeper Carlo Cudicini once said.
For Arsenal fans, Henry was a dream.
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