Thierry Henry has confirmed that he is stepping down from his punditry position with Sky Sports to pursue his ambition of becoming a football manager.
The Frenchman has worked with the broadcaster for four seasons and had previously committed to the £4 million-a-year position even when it came at the expense of a coaching role at Arsenal. You’ll remember that Arsene Wenger felt his former captain couldn’t have his cake and eat it while on the books at London Colney.
Henry secured his UEFA A-Licence back in 2016 with the Welsh FA and secured his Pro Licence in May during his recent stint as assistant coach to Roberto Martinez’s Belgium national team.
Having helped guide the Belgians to a bronze-medal finish at the World Cup, the 40-year-old says he’s eager to pursue a career in the dugout.
In a series of tweets, Henry wrote: “Over the last four years I have had some extremely rewarding coaching experiences in football.
“These experiences have only made me more determined to fulfil my long term ambition to become a football manager.
“It is with sadness, therefore, that I have decided that I must leave Sky Sports to enable me to spend more time on the pitch and concentrate on my journey to achieving that goal.
“I would like to thank everyone at Sky for making me feel so welcome and at ease throughout my time with them and I wish them all the best for the future. Great memories.”
1/3 Over the last 4 years I have had some extremely rewarding coaching experiences in football. These experiences have only made me more determined to fulfil my long term ambition to become a football manager. pic.twitter.com/NOQZzuif4m
— Thierry Henry (@ThierryHenry) July 16, 2018
2/3 It is with sadness, therefore, that I have decided that I must leave @SkySports to enable me to spend more time on the pitch and concentrate on my journey to achieving that goal. pic.twitter.com/EdC4s8AMaW
— Thierry Henry (@ThierryHenry) July 16, 2018
3/3 I would like to thank everyone at Sky for making me feel so welcome and at ease throughout my time with them and I wish them all the best for the future. Great memories. pic.twitter.com/k5Ysgr0Onn
— Thierry Henry (@ThierryHenry) July 16, 2018
There’s no suggestion just yet that Henry will leave his position with Belgium, however, he’s bound to be on the lookout for a more senior position having cut his teeth at international level.
The bookies had Henry as an outsider for the Arsenal head coach role when Arsene Wenger left, but he was way down the pecking order behind Mikel Arteta, Patrick Vieira – now at Nice – and Unai Emery, who was ultimately appointed.
It’ll certainly be interesting to see where Titi ends up. Good luck to him.
Good luck Titi
Thank fu*k for that…. World class player, really shit pundit.
One day, he will be an Arsenal manager. It is written.
I don’t know what the down votes are about. He’s a legend, a fan and he really, really loves Arsenal like us.
IF he can prove himself elsewhere first and proves to be a good couch, I for one would welcome him with open arms.
Because his IQ seems low to me. Great player doesn’t mean good coach.
From what Hazard and Lukaku say about him, he really helps them further develop as strikers. The guy knows a lot of football. He is obsessed with that.
Arsenal is wrong not using these guys. Vieira started getting praised in MLS for bringing good football before he left. Pundits in MLS say his departure was a blow to MLS. Plus he was very appreciated by his players for his coaching style of behaving like their captain.
Praise is just that–their results don’t match up yet. Henry is worth keeping at Arsenal in the long term, I agree, but definitely Emery is the better choice at the moment.
But it’s true, sometimes love just isn’t enough, and it can stop you from doing or seeing what needs to be done. I suspect it was very much this exact sentiment that hampered Wenger’s last season.
Completely agree, I don’t think Henry or Wenger (or most of us) would have ever let Jack Wilshere leave the club. But Emery looking at the situation without the emotional attachment was able to make the ruthless decision based on nothing more than footballing reasons. Henry is undoubtedly one of (if not the) biggest legends at our club. But I wouldn’t want him to be given the manager’s job just because he’s a legend. We offered him a coaching role at arsenal, which could have been a good way to progress through the ranks like Guardiola did, like zidan, etc,… Read more »
Frank Lampard and David Villa, yet he can’t win the MLS title?
I wouldn’t define that as “relatively successful.”
36 years old players ?
Who are still miles ahead of most anyone else in the MLS.
His IQ seems high to everyone else? :-/
Saying Henry’s IQ “seems low” to you is like reporting on yourself for being a dunce of the highest order. Whether you like or dislike his punditry, he’s a Frenchman working in an English-language medium. He could probably do it on Italian and Spanish television too with his command of those languages. How many English players from Henry’s generation could do that? These kinds of personal attacks are really ugly. There’s a certain type of fan that’s way too comfortable making them about Arsenal legends. Our club wouldn’t have the rep it has without people like Thierry Henry. Show some… Read more »
I would say that he would definitely tend to over exaggerate and state the obvious as a pundit, certainly initially but he did improve over time, no doubt due to the coaching experience he gained during being a pundit. Aaaaand his ego gets in the way a bit when being the pundit, unavoidable. As a coach I bet he’s a lot better at analysing the game because it’s for a more sincere, selfless and progressive purpose.
That’s fair criticism of Henry as a pundit.
The whole format of having ex-footballers as pundits and co-commentators is rubbish in my opinion. Very few of them do it well.
Probably wouldnt have fallen so far if he hadnt jumped ship either…
He strikes me of being one of the most intelligent and knowledgeable men in football and hope will make a very successful manager. He has has some good experience as assistant coach of Belgium. I cannot understand why you would question his intelligence
NOPE.
He’s not a genuine fan in my opinion. Compare him to Wrighty:
-IW: “We won” “We lost”
-TH: “We won” “They lost”
Fans don’t use THEY, fans don’t leave for Sky, fans don’t leave for Barcelona. I wish he didn’t do all those things because he was my hero growing up; but he did. But I am first and foremost a gooner (hero or not) and I’ve come to realize we are probably better off without him.
Some football clubs have ultras that attack the team at the training ground or make fascist salutes during games.
The Arsenal ultras get panic attacks when a club legend uses the wrong pronouns. Levels.
Who said panic attack? I don’t appreciate the implication, you could’ve made your point without it.
If he is a genuine fan to you, how do you explain his leaving us for Barcelona? He may be a supporter, but not a fan.
Fans don’t switch clubs.
Um, being a footballer is a job.
If he wasn’t a fan, do you think coming back and scoring those goals would’ve meant so much to him? Why do you see things in such black and white terms? It must make getting through life very difficult.
Being a fan is not a job.
He left for Barcelona at 29 with my blessings…! I didn’t give my blessings when he left for shit crew Skye though.
Fans do not dismiss our best striker either.
Compare the following situations :
1) Wenger appointed Mertsacker head of academy with zero experience and no coaching badge at all, paid him one year of salary for not being considered for games.
2) He didn’t want to accomodate the best player in club history for an assistant to the U18 coach position.
3) Wenger himself acted as pundit and commented a game in which Ozil was involved. Although Wenger by nature he doesn’t criticize a specific player, he put himself in the exact same situation.
Exactly. There’s been a lot of hypocritical thinking in the last few years which has been absorbed by some fans as “principles”. Just step back a bit and you’ll see the picture is a lot more complicated than that. No-one’s suggesting that Henry walk into the Arsenal job now, or even in three years. But it would be great to see him have a managerial career that matches his playing one, and even better if his success (or part of it) came with us. He represents the pinnacle of individual brilliance allied with a team ethic that Arsenal should always… Read more »
I think it was a wrong decision to quit Arsenal for Skye but it is ultimately his decision n no one should fault him for his career decisions. never the less I did feel hurt when he left (I expected such from Viera but never Thierry)!
To be fair to him, it’s a fuck of a long commute from the Inner Hebrides.
You don’t expect pundits to show attachments do you? They need to be as objective as possible. Sometimes his sentiments come a bit In the way and him stating the obvious truths as a pundit regarding our club hurts everyone… But that’s coming from a pundit, we should take it. I can imagine it hurts him just as much. He’s a huge fan of the club and a legend, you can’t take these away from him.
I think people are being way too negative about theirrys punditry. Th14 got famous and played for fc Hollywood. To think he would have no interest in moving into TV after his playing career finished is laughable. His stock as a manager at his age when retiring and his stock as a pundit at the same age are vastly different. So when he was told he could not share duties he chose intelligently, he chose to get a bigger paycheck now and look for some way to gain experience part time. He found a part time management position in the… Read more »
You can’t use the word shit and Henry in the same sentence
Henry took a shit all over the defence
Henry was a shit hot player. Done.
What does Henry think of Tottenham? Shit! Done.
Even in MLS, he kept the banter when he had to play a preseason game against them.
Good but ruled out as Henry and shit are not in the same sentence in your example. Oh, but they are in mine. Done
not, technically, the same sentence.
Four million a year !!!!!$£%!!!!! That’s a shitload of money for waffling about football. Fucking hell. I’m cancelling my subscription at once…Actually I don’t have a Sky subscription as I illegally stream everything but still..
😀 😀 😀
Disgraceful, I never stream nada, hahaha.
Acestream FTW
hehe, you just did…
We’ve already got one…
https://youtu.be/Ea8GyscSFaQ
jw1
good luck Thierry!
Okay okay okay, I’m sure I am not drunk, but why am I seeing doubles? Why is Henry watching Henry at White Hart Lane in the images?
What is this treachery?
Interesting that he’ll prioritise coaching now and not a few years ago, I wonder if it’s the hint of glory he got with Belgium or an issue he had with Wenger
Martinez is the boss of Belgium. Henry tries hard to keep low profile but the press is there talking about. Astitute Wenger didn’t want that.
Is he just seeing what the sage Arsene Wenger had seen all along?
Should’ve done this before, could have been working for us
He probably valued working in the media and being able to watch and analyse hours and hours of top level European football. And fair play to him for earning a shedload of money doing it.
When a role came along that he felt would properly challenge him he took it and has been part of a very successful World Cup. Wenger left his little village in Alsace and ended up working in Japan before he landed at Arsenal.
Some of you need to let the man find his own way and stop second-guessing him.
You couldn’t have said it better! Besides, pretty sure being a pundit for him has been educational. Would really come in handy in his managerial roles
Not having a go at him, but I’m probably not alone in thinking Thierry should have done this at least a season ago. The Sky job really hasn’t enhanced his profile, which was surely the aim. Sky seem more concerned with turning Jamie Redknapp into some sort of light entertainment personality, and giving Carragher the basic education he missed out on as a child, than tapping into Henry’s charisma. Be interesting to see what he does next, I can’t help but feel he probably won’t have as many options as he might have had two seasons ago. Who knows, maybe… Read more »
Exactly what Wenger advised.
In other news (talk about strikers)…Welbeck on the chopping block. Emery may let him go according to Telegraph. Makes sense. Prob recoup quite a bit of money to balance out 70m spent so far (Plus Jenkinson, Ospina, Campbell, Akpom) Lucas Perez looks 50-50. Also mentioned as potential departure but looks like he may be reinvigorated by his fellow country man taking over the helm and all depends on how much Emery feels he can squeeze out of the 29yr old. Either way, striking department looks strong enough without Welbeck (was never even Giroud in output). Particularly since one of Nketiah… Read more »
Noooo not Wele aka Welbinho. Though in reality he probably prefers Perez.
The other person who needs to get into coaching is Pires.
Replace Bould…Guy looks lost out their on the training field without Wenger.
Well, THAT interview with Arsene!
Probably a good move. Great player, not a very good pundit, could be a great manager.
A good player but a terrible pundit. Lost some respect for Titi for his various digs at his old club. I don’t want him anywhere near Arsenal until he’s ready. The guy needs to earn his stripes.
I love arseblog where everyone is allowed to express themselves… Henry is a legend no doubt but fans should understand not everyone can sacrifice their own career to please other people. That’s exactly what Henry, Fab, Nasir, and even Helb did. They put their careers ahead of the club they love, at some point don’t blame them. Wenger loved and sacrificed for arsenal and alongside made terrible mistakes which lead to the wenger out banner week in week out…. Now we have IG running the show as if he wasn’t there before trying to prove power and if UE starts… Read more »
He’s a right slag. Threw a hissy fit when Wenger told him that.
On a separate note, check out this nugget and of course have the deepest sympathy…
http://dailycannon.com/2018/07/alexis-sanchez-refused-entry-to-united-states/
Unpopular opinion.. quit arsenal for Barce, Needs to get over himself..
And then there’s the handball…
FM19 will be out in november.
Will always love him, but his punditry skills were lacking…