‘If you lose your speed, you’re dead’ – Why Arsenal flogged Thierry Henry and broke up Invincibles
ARSENAL remain the only team to go an entire Premier League season undefeated when they won the title in 2003-04.
But within a few years of that historic triumph, the Invincibles squad was broken up.
And that included flogging superstar forward Thierry Henry.
Talisman Henry – Arsenal captain at the time – left North London for Barcelona aged 29 in the summer of 2007.
The Gunners received just £16million for their record goalscorer.
But in a bombshell exclusive interview with SunSport, in which he slams the board for “failing” Mikel Arteta, former Arsenal managing director Keith Edelman revealed why they were prepared to sell Henry.
Edelman said: “The reason Thierry moved on was because he was losing his speed.
“His game was basically all about speed.
“And if you lose your speed, then you’re dead.
“So, we got money for him despite the fact that he was on the downward trap.
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“It’s like Kevin De Bruyne. Would you have been better to sell him for more money at the end of last year?
“Or keep him and risk that he’d keep going this season?”
Henry – who scored 228 times for Arsenal – had three seasons at the Nou Camp, winning two LaLiga titles, the Copa del Rey, Champions League, Super Cup and Club World Cup.
As for the team he left, Arsene Wenger’s Arsenal went nine years without a major trophy between their FA Cup triumphs in 2005 and 2014.
Part of the reason for the lack of success was because many of the 2004 Invincibles departed the club – including heroes Patrick Vieira and Robert Pires – to make way for cheaper, younger players with potential.
The transfer strategy, though, was down to the financial mire Arsenal found themselves in.
Edelman explained: “Building a team goes in waves.
“If you’ve got endless amounts of money, as Manchester City had, you could keep a team going longer.
“I’d argue there’s probably only 20 world-class players in the whole Premier League, which is a very small number.
“Therefore, replacing world-class players is very difficult.
“And therefore, if you win things, you have a lot of world-class players because that’s how you win things. But when they get older, it’s very difficult to replace them.
“You’ve got to look at how many world-class players you’ve got in your team, and they won’t be world-class forever, they get older and tend to dip.
“This is what I mean about looking at things strategically.
“You’ve got to ask the right questions. You’ve got to be probing. I don’t think a lot of people do that.
“Arsenal were, in the Invincible years, were really lucky because, they had Thierry Henry, Patrick Vieira, Robert Pires, Sol Campbell and Gilberto Silva, there’s five world-class players.”
Read our full interview with Edelman
- Edelman has landed a new role away from football. He has taken up a position with the country’s leading keynote speakers’ agency, Champions Speakers, to deliver speeches in the business world