Didn’t Thierry Henry stop playing about five years ago? Far from it. He starred for the New York Red Bulls until December, when he announced that he was hanging up his boots and signing a £4m-a-year, six-year deal with Sky Sports. Fresh from handing the Ballon d’Or to Cristiano Ronaldo on Monday he has jetted in to make his Sky debut from the Etihad on Sunday.
Wow, what a signing! New team-mate Gary Neville must be pleased You mean £1.2m-a-year Gary Neville? I’m sure he’s delighted. Henry remains Arsenal’s record scorer with 228 goals and his cool approach is likely to appear even cooler alongside Sky’s existing A list of Neville and Jamie Carragher.
Couldn’t Henry have moved back to France? He’s not so popular there. When the top-selling football magazine So Foot profiled him in 2010 they didn’t know what they liked least, the “pathetic ending to his international career” or his “nouveau riche, bling-bling, rotten and spoiled … calculating and cynical” personality.
Seems a bit harsh. Isn’t he France’s all-time top scorer too? That’s just one of his achievements. He’s also their all-time most-embarrassing World Cup play-off handballer, and tarnished by association with their humiliation in 2010.
I thought Nicolas Anelka was the villain of the South Africa World Cup? I don’t remember Henry doing anything much That’s precisely the point. He did nothing at all to stop the infighting, and then flew back to France, set up a special meeting with President Sarkozy to make himself look good, and gave a big one-on-one interview with Canal Plus.
And how did that go? Terribly. In front of a microphone he turned into a clumsy, awkward, stuttering mess.
Presumably nobody at Sky saw it?
Good question. Whatever they think in France he remains a legend with Arsenal fans, though – even despite his comment last week they were “out of order” in their abuse of Arsène Wenger after the defeat at Stoke.
Isn’t there a statue of him at the Emirates? Margot Roulleau-Gallais said: “It was really enjoyable sculpting Thierry because, to be honest, he is such a beautiful man.” She also said: “The hardest part was the legs, knees, feet and back.” So, to summarise, he’s got good arms.
And this means he can move back into his old house in Hampstead. Wasn’t it designed by a famous architect? You mean Sir Richard MacCormac, former Riba president, whose newly constructed house Henry snapped up in 2001? Henry knocked it down and built a new(er) one that offered “sufficient wardrobe space”, “a better swimming pool” and “improved grandeur”.
To be fair the man does need sufficient wardrobe space That much became clear last summer, when his impressive analysis as a member of BBC’s panel of experts at the World Cup was wildly overshadowed by his superlative collection of cardigans. Expect to see a pin-sharp suit on Sunday.
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