Various reports claim this morning that Arsene Wenger won’t offer Thierry Henry a formal coaching position at Arsenal unless he gives up his role as a pundit on Sky Sports.
Henry took up a high-profile, big-money position with Sky in January 2015 and also has other media responsibilities including a column in The Sun.
He spent last season working with the Gunners’ under-18s as he completed his UEFA A Licence with the Welsh FA. Having impressed Academy director Andries Jonker with his dedication it was widely believed the club’s record goal scorer would be afforded the chance to complete his UEFA Pro Licence at London Colney. The Frenchman requires the qualification if he’s to coach a top flight team in Europe.
Having impressed Academy director Andries Jonker with his dedication it was widely believed the club’s record goal scorer would be afforded the chance to complete his UEFA Pro Licence at London Colney. The Frenchman requires the qualification if he’s to coach a top flight team in Europe.
The Daily Mail suggests a decision is yet to be made by Henry, but stresses he’s unhappy with the ultimatum from Wenger. Their report pointedly references the boss’ own TV commitments.
The Telegraph goes further, saying Henry won’t sack off Sky but has offered to coach at Arsenal for free; a proposal that Wenger has rejected.
As an aside, there are suggestions that Tony Adams may have got the under-18s gig instead.
Henry was rather pointed in his criticism of several members of Arsenal’s first team squad last season; comments that ruffled a few feathers, particularly those of Olivier Giroud. His words on the atmosphere at the Emirates in March also provoked a fierce retort from the boss.
As discussed on the main blog this morning, it looks as though Wenger is laying down the law to Henry, making clear that if you’re going to be part of the Arsenal set-up you need to all be on the same page.
Be interesting to see how this ended up in the press – whether it was leaked from TH or by the club…
As far as I’m concerned Wenger is right.
No problem with him being a pundit in the summer tournaments, but not on a weekly basis in the prem
If this is true Wenger is behaving like a petty petty man, i’d tell him to get stuffed.
I think Arsene is behaving like a true gent!
You can’t keep mouthing off in the media about your own employers and its employees and still have respect. You are either in the media or in the team set-up, not both ways.
Only a Gary Nev can be terrible at both
It’s the behaviour of a dictator. Henry hasn’t said anything controversial and criticism is vital for improvement, which is presumably why Wenger has regressed so dramatically over the years, because he can’t take being questioned.
The media is never a place where constructive criticism happens. Sky just want another former Gunner to slate their own team. Arsenal derives no benefit whatsoever from the shill work TH has done for Sky.
If you were my employee and you went out and actively insulted and degraded other employees I wouldn’t even give the option. You’d just get sacked. Not for me, for the good of the workplace.
Who has he actively insulted?
Wenger has always been a confidence man. It’s much harder to instill that confidence in players if they are being slated by another member of the coaching setup.
All corporations are essentially totalitarian in structure.
Some ex-player starts criticizing the striker at a crucial point in the season because Murdoch-vision (if we want to talk about dictators) tpld him he was too boring as a pundit and should be more critical, and it effected Giroud and the club, badly.
Henry, take some responsibility. Get with the team or dont. But no club is healthy with one of its coaching staff piblically criticizing and undermining its players for money.
How did it affect Giroud badly?
His goal tally was on par with the previous 3 seasons he’s been with us, which is precisely why Henry was right when he said Giroud wouldn’t be the man to score the goals to win us the league.
There’s nothing wrong with what he said, it’s an honest uncontroversial observation, people have to stop being so ridiculously sensitive.
Henry has been riding his high horse ever since he took that job with sky. He’s like a grumpy old man, nothing’s ever good enough, when we win he criticizes and when we lose he criticizes. He praised Spurs all season and practically put the wind in their sails. I don’t know a single pundit from sky and bbc that isn’t ridiculously biased towards their team, most often Liverpool which drives me mad cuz their delusional. Us gooner though we finally had someone to defend gooners from unnecessary criticism, instead he’s a bigger prick then them all, just riding his… Read more »
To be fair, if Gary Neville had been a Man U coach while still a sky pundit, that also would have been untenable.
True.
Obviously, when Neville was at Valencia, he had to forego his punditry business. And his post-managerial fiasco, we all know the respect he now commands with his punditry. He got found out BIG time.
Thierry could be heading down a similar path if he fails to choose the right one whichever it may be.
Two days ago, Wenger was doing a pundit job for a game where some of his players were involved. Was he loyal to the media he was working for if he retained from criticizing his players?
The media he was working for knew his position before they employed him for the role. In Henrys case it’s the reverse, he was a pundit first.
They’re not the same thing. Wenger is commenting on international football games. Henry is commenting on club games, including Arsenal games.
Which is why criticizing Wenger for a double standard makes no sense at all.
Not to mention one happens for a month in the summer when there’s no club football, the other happens during the season when you have to…um…maybe do your job and be a coach???????
Dude, Wenger do his punditry when he is on holiday before pre season starts, if you want one day to become manager you need to invest everything in yourself which henry need to do, not having more jobs punditry etc, either you want to be a manager or not, I didn’t see pep from academy to Barcelona b and then head coach having two jobs and be a pundit in TV, or Zidane for that matter.
Most managers are on a beach while Wenger is commentating on more football during his holiday.
Or if you’re Big Sam then: http://youtu.be/E54_S_yA5gk
Yeah like murinho posting photos in the pool, city welcomed peo the other day so sto saying bulshit, wenger even when evryone is on holiday he is still involed in football, the man dosent take holidays or go on vecation, and don’t forget he bought alexis during the world cuo doing punditry an stole the bid from liverpool ih he was not at the worldcup at the time maybe he wouldnt be an arsenal player today, plus the grat games alexis showed for chile at the time made wenger to still the march on liverpool and go all in. Plus… Read more »
How about conflict of interest?? You’re potentially coaching at Arsenal, and then you go on air and criticise your own employers’ tactics and players, which your Sky employers would obviously want you to do in your ‘analysis’. So yes, pretty spot on call by Wenger (if all this IS true). In addition, Wenger does TV punditry mainly at tournaments, aka off-season. I don’t see how both things are the same.
He does TV punditry in the off season when he should be improving the squad
We seem to have landed a rather big signing after his gig at the WC.
#WengerOut, roll out your banner! Seriously?
It’s off season for everyone dealing with transfers at arsenal it seems
Yes, because we’ve signed absolute nobody yet
good decision by Arsenal/Wenger, but also a sad decision that had to be made. I hope Henry changes his mind because I certainly want the greatest player I have ever watched in an Arsenal jersey inspiring and helping our next generation of players.
Get stuffed, John C.
Won’t believe it until either henry or Wenger himself. I have been an arsenal fan long though to know how the media tries to wind up arsenal fans.
Many people are stupid enough to be wound up. They think that a good player is a dead cert for a good manager and somehow letting them leave Arsenal will be a huge mistake. They forget the Vieiras, the Adams, the Nevilles. They can’t look past Guardiola’s rise through Barcelona B and see the bigger picture.
Vieira has done pretty good so far. You may add Roy Keane instead.
He landed a good payroll anyway.
And Guardiola has been pretty fortunate, only managing the top, rich, teams. I’d give him more respect if he worked his way up the clubs.
He did, and then when he did he managed top, wealthy teams as he deserved and continues to deserve.
What? He managed Barca B, Barca and Bayern. None of them exactly a ‘team in crisis’. He’s clearly very good but we haven’t seen him in a difficult situation yet as a manager.
Working up Barcelona’s management chain has got to be one of the hardest jobs in football. It takes a lot more than just ‘coasting’ to make it up any big club from the B-team.
Yes, sure, a team with players like Busquets and Pedro is a real tough team to manage.
True dat. Really interested to see how he gets on with Citeh. Certainly still fall into the mega rich category but it’s a mega rich league now. He’ll not be used to the week in week out level of competition faced here.
This is definitely a media windup. Don’t place any credence. Definitely a 12 poo story!
Fair play to Arsene but to lose Thierry would be very, very bad for the club in the long run.
I am fine with Henry or any other legend or former players criticizing Arsenal. Wenger has problems with accepting criticism. Was a joke that he wouldn’t rule out being the manager of english national team in the future. Henry never got close to the negative comments Tony Adams made about Wenger’s job at Arsenal.
Wenger has more difficulty in dealing with criticism these days, in my opinion, not because the its criticism but more because the criticism is about as inane as a butter knife on a steak. So much pointless and thoughtless interrogation by a media that seeks to buffer its profits by exploiting the lowest common denominator. It’s turned into a filthy cat and mouse, try to get that controversial quote kind of game at press events, and let’s be honest, any reasonably intelligent man, save le prof, would get annoyed, week in week out, decade in, decade out.
Go on the news and criticize your employer. When they sack you tell them they just can’t take criticism.
This is just the way any company works these days.
Wenger is closest thing to dictatorship in world football. truely beyond criticize after 10 years of failure and repeatetive mistakes. the reason is his blind fans (mostly old fans with low testosterone levels who attend matchs for highest prices and lowest expectations) football used to bring me much more joy and energy when Henry and co. and if you say that was Wenger’s team. yeah it “was” 13 damn years ago. for respect(!!!!) somehow we ended up giving him a decade of blameless failure.
10 years of failure – so 2 FA cups in a row and finishing 2nd is 10yrs of failure?
and 10 yrs ago we finished 2nd to Barca in the whole of Europe. 10 yrs of misery by the sounds of you.
“attend matchs for highest prices and lowest expectations”
youre free to call this decade a success thats normal with the lowest expectations
(by the way Arsenal barcelona UCL final was 2006 before the past 10 seasons we are talking about, in time 3 of the big 4 won and had runner ups in competition)
@ broken red army.
the guy i was replying to said 10 yrs. 2016-2006 = 10 yrs.
when did man city win or were runners up in CL?
in those 10 yrs we have actually won a few trophies, feel free to wallow in your misery.
Why? Do you have insight into how good Henry is at coaching?
I for one remember players saying how Henry used to analyse oppositions and talk to Wenger about it before trainings. and how Wenger actually took them seriosly and it worked out. if I remember right Pat Rice Pires Viera and Lehmann all talked about it through years. all that said I dont think Henry would be a bad coach as youre pointing out.
I’ve not said that he would be a bad coach, you’re reading things that don’t exist. I’m not privy to how he acts on the training ground, I don’t know Henry personally – I have no idea whether he’d be a good coach or bad. I was responding to the comment above that it would be “very very bad” if he left the club – i’m not sure how that person, or indeed you, knows that it would be so bad unless you’ve seen how good he is at coaching. I’d genuinely love to know how people know that he’d… Read more »
by the way Henry last year this time said it many times we needed a finisher and a back up defensive midfielder. people easily disrespected our best ever player for that and halfway through we all knew what we needed. after that in a period when those 2 players were obviosly missed most fans (%70+ at one point) wanted Wenger out and got frustrated by likes of Giroud and Theo. people have short memories…
Oh well that makes Henry a genius coach then. I also said the same last summer – should I get to coach Arsenal too?
If Henry is acting like a knob, despite the history, statue and everything else we can’t just do whatever he wants. This is Arsenal. If he wants to coach our youth team he has to be 100% committed.
If this is true Wenger has a point.football requires ? no time for punditry.
Then why does Wenger get to provide commentary for certain networks?
Why isn’t he providing the 100% that you claim is necessary?
Because he does this work for international tournaments, not when his employer is involved. When Wenger speaks about Arsenal he speaks as a representative of the club, not a pundit who’s job it is to critique everyone including his club.
Unless you’re the boss…
So do you think that if Wenger was at home he wouldn’t be watching the same international matches which he has been a pundit for? Can’t compare what Henry is doing to what Wenger is doing. Clearly a conflict of interest if Henry was to continue as a pundit as well as being a member of our coaching squad
Point is Wenger is more of a coach than a pundit and Henry is more of a pundit than a coach at this point in time.. On this one I’ll be with Arsene.
Mourinho gets rid of Giggs:
No one bats an eye.
Arsene Wenger tells Henry to either chose coaching or punditry:
Everyone loses their minds
I’m pretty sure that Giggs didn’t want to be working under Maureen, being a big cunt he recognized an even bigger cunt. Also, he did his apprenticeship and still he was not chosen to be a manager, they overlooked him. So I believe that it was also his desire to leave after seeing that he is not gonna be getting the role anytime soon.
GREAT COMMENT!!!
It’s even worse than that, I think. First, the Giggs exit (Gexit, sure) has actually happened, while the Henry story is from the Mirror and the Telegraph. So the reaction is at least premature and may prove entirely irrelevant. Second, whatever we think of Giggs and Manchester United, his role at the club was different than Henry’s at Arsenal. He was there, without interruption, through the entire history of the Premier League, he has repeatedly been described as the eventual successor to Ferguson, he has been interim manager. If I were a Man United supporter, I would be genuinely shocked… Read more »
So, following in the footsteps of others, he’ll go somewhere else, as there will be plenty of clubs happy with him doing both.
He’ll do very well wherever he goes and we’ll look like chumps, again.
Thanks boss.
Is he also going to criticise those other clubs while working as a pundit?
Maybe he’ll just tell the truth?
Honestly guys, I do understand your point but when he does go elsewhere and makes a raving success of it, who gives a tiny rats ass, whether he’s critical or not?
Besides, barring the odd exception, for some reason, our beloved club appears to produce more ex players ready to slag us off than any other. How often do you hear ex players from the scum slag them off?
In what other line of work would an employer keep a member of staff who had slagged off other workers at his company on live TV? This decision from Wenger makes perfect sense and any rational fan can see that. Truth be told, my only surprise is that it took Wenger this long to do it.
To be brutally honest, his TV punditry isn’t very insightful. He’s charming and quick witted, but I never learn anything about a match from him that I didn’t already know.
Very understandable on the basis that coaching an U18 team should be a full time job, but the Telegraph’s assertions that Arsene just doesn’t want anyone challenging his views or his position is quite worrying. That being said, it could be a load of bollocks, and seems quite out of character, given the position offered to Arteta, who I assume will be managing a club before Thierry.
That’s just the Telegraph’s interpretation. Which is another way of saying “they made it up.” Even if it actually is true behind the scenes that Wenger doesn’t want anybody challenging him, don’t expect some grotty little newspaper to know anything about it. Nothing more than guesswork.
It’s about being challenged in public whilst the team needs a to stick together. If there’s any ‘challenging’ to be done then it needs to be done in house, not in public.
This shows Wenger wants only Yes men around ES.
If Arsenal fail to challenge mid through 2016,he shd be off asap.
Yes he should be off if the under 18 squad fail to challenge mid way through 2016 considering Thierry would be working with the Under 18’s and not the senior squad…
Perfectly fine to question your boss, but you should bring those questions to your boss, not to an international TV audience.
You sound like a Bremain voter lol
Put Adams and Henry in charge at Arsenal and let Wenger go and manage England…. He’ll be good at that as he wont have to spend any money!!
Yeah, because Adams’ track record as a manager is incredible and Henry’s coaching experience knows no limits.
Sounds very cooked up by the media, I’m pretty sure wenger has probably had a word with Henry at some point to tone down his criticism of arsenal..and I guess its a fair point but definitely overblown by the media here.
To be honest the ball is in Henry’s court – he made his decision to make controversial comments that really wern’t necessary. I think he really needs be stronger towards Sky and say that he won’t be involved in negative comments towards his employer..
Or just tell the media to stick it because they’re a bunch of shit-stirring pricks with no interest in genuine critique and every interest in self-promotion, and get back to his first love, football?
How many more ‘pundits’ do we need anyway, it’s a farce. Sometimes there’s six of them round a small table – ex-managers, players and even bloody refs now.
None of them say anything worth listening to – I’m sick of it, we are paying to listen to their tripe.
Half of them had average careers and wouldn’t know how to run a bath let alone manage a football club.
Fair play Arsene I say, I’m with him on this one.
Everybody is saying employer, employee this and that. The guy is only there for his UEFA pro licence. Wenger made Henry as a player since Monaco. Henry is responsible for all the success Wenger has had as a manager. Do they like each other? Not sure. A long time ago, Henry was asked who was the biggest coach he worked with? He answered Capello,tlhe guy who did not believe in him.
Yes that’s right, Henry’s goals fired us to that league title in 1998 didn’t they?! People are saying employer this and that because that IS the relationship that we were offering. Henry has no right to a job at the club, nor to call the shots, and neither should he.
Henry didn’t even think he could be a centre-forward before Wenger converted him, so this is a weak argument and an insult to all the other great players we had (Vieira, Seaman, Bergkamp, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc…).
It’s one thing to put great players on the pitch, it’s another to instill a philosophy, to refine techniques on the training ground, to motivate, to inspire. It’s the reason why Arsenal are the only (?) team to get to the last 16 of UCL for sixteen years in a row. It’s phenomenal consistency that spans across players.
Dont see the issue here.
Its not like Wenger’s TV commitments has got in the way of completing transfer business…………….. oh…
The transfers are the job of Ivan and Dick with Arsene giving them a list of players to negotiate for.
you forgot “Miles”
Hmmm, I don’t think you understand how the transfer market works
There’s always someone who, if they see a sportsman or manager doing ANYTHING OTHER than thumbing their chin with a clipboard in one hand and an iPhone wedges between their ear and shoulder, AT ANY POINT IN THE DAY, accuse them of not doing their job. How stupid can one be!?
I’m really not a fan of his punditry work so hoping the ultimatum is true if it results in king Thierry committing full time to the Arsenal
There’s valid arguments from both sides.
It depends on how badly Henry wants it.
http://m.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/36774864
Henry’s left. Guess he didn’t want it that badly. With us, anyway.
looks like the media are starting to stir things up early at Arsenal.
I love Henry as a player but his critisicm of giroud was bang out of order, TH was certainly one who
didn’t take critisicm to well when he was playing.
a lot of Arsenal fans are numpties for believing everything in the press
I can see another season where the atmosphere will be very poisonous
If I was Wenger I would leave at the end of this contract and not take the shit he gets for all that he has done for the club.
There’s a difference between slagging off your employer and being disrespectful. Just because you are my employer it doesn’t mean I must agree with you in any case a pundit is meant to be critical and impartial.
If wenger is unable to separate Henry the coach and Henry the pundit, it’s a sad indictment on him. If it’s true then it’s quite odd because wenger did state that he understands why Henry was that critical due to his work conditions to now act hurt is rather petty.
“Just because you are my employer it doesn’t mean I must agree with you” – yeah, that means having a quiet word with the boss in his/her office. Not going on TV in front of millions of viewers to express your differences.
Critical analysis escapes wenger. Great man, he’s now struggling to be barely average. Next season will be same again unless.
You think you’d get a team to 2nd in the PL or are you below average then?
why not try and publicly slag off your employer whilst earning money from doing so?
almost any employment contract would classify that as gross misconduct
you are conflating two things: firstly, privately suggesting to your employer that if things could be done more efficiently or better, outcomes would improve for the business; and, secondly, earning significant amounts of money from publicly airing negative opinion about your employer to stir up social media feeds and generate higher viewing figures.
I hate to say this…but: you’re dead right, Sam.
Damn! That hurt!
BTW: Henry is on 4 million quid a year at Sky. I wonder what he’ll choose?
Thierry Henry hasn’t to my knowledge ever said anything critical of Arsenal.
He’s said Giroud wasn’t good enough to lead us to the title, which is an opinion of Giroud not Arsenal and he said the atmosphere during a match was bad, both of which is fair comment in my opinion and if he’d said anything different you couldn’t take him seriously.
You can think whatever, but at the end of the day, Arsenal’s legends go work anywhere else but at the club and no top players are interested in coming to us (going to clubs that aren’t even in the Champions League) with Wenger in charge
Pure rubbish.
Of course we’re employing former players. Bould, Rice, Adams (who will take on the U18’s now) and an extensive network of scouts (incl Grimaldi, Karbassiyoon).
Wenger is right in saying that you can’t employ them for the sake of employing them, and situations like Vieira are purely about timing.
Silly stance to take. There’s nothing wrong with Henry having the occasional appearance on Sky perhaps with the stipulation that he avoids Arsenal related criticism. There’s not enough hours in the day for him to do both jobs full time anyhow.
I think that’s fine in theory, but in practice sky probably aren’t going to pay an Arsenal legend to talk only about matches that don’t involve Arsenal.
As for not expecting him to criticize Arsenal, Arseblog seems to hint that at least some of his criticism was probably the result of being told by sky to be more critical. It doesn’t seem like they would be fine with him abstaining from Arsenal criticism.
Seems reasonable to me.
Just one example. Henry works with Arsenal, learns the current drills, formations, tactics and gameplans. Then as a pundit he’s tasked with reviewing Arsenal games, discussing the best way to beat Arsenal and pointing out weaknesses.
It’s not about Arsene being unable to take criticism. It’s about not employing someone who’s part time job is to go on tv to analyze, criticize, and pick apart your set up for other people’s benefit.
Why is Wenger the bad guy here? He’s given Henry a chance to become a full-time coach at the club he loves. That’s a pretty big offer given there are literally thousands of other qualified coaches out there who have more experience and would give their right arm for the opportunity. So Henry had a choice whether to take up that full-time job or take the easy life and sit in the tv studio counting his salary. If Henry has chosen the latter then that says more about him than Wenger. You won’t find a single job anywhere in the… Read more »
I don’t believe Wenger has done anything wrong here. There’s no firm involved that would allow an employee to criticize them in the public. Having said that, I believe what most people on here and many Gooners are worried about is how view former players we recruit. Yes, we offer a place for them to earn license but apart from Steve Bould and Pat Rice, no other positions have been tendered to former players. Contrast our situation to the one at Ajax which, up to a few months ago, employed the legendary Johan Cruyff, along with our very own Bergkamp,… Read more »
Nonsense. I can think of at least 6 former Arsenal players currently in roles at the club. The assistant manager & head of scouting are ex-players. Its a myth that ex-players arent offered jobs, as is proven by Henry & Adams now being offered jobs.
I’m happier with the BBC version, less speculation:
http://www.bbc.com/sport/football/36774864
Wenger already made earlier comments suggesting that for Henry to become a good coach, he would need to put the team number one ahead of himself (which Wenger certainly has done – “I never saw it”). There’s a suggestion that Henry is still too selfish, and his response here underlines it. Why would he choose punditry as his priority? That’s pure selfishness and egocentricity.
The BBC says Tony Adams will take the role.
So the argument that we don’t bring back former players falls away in this case.
There was never a coherent argument on those lines anyway. Leaving aside the fact that we offered Henry a coaching job and he has been coaching with us recently, the club has loads of ex-players among the coaching staff and it always has under Wenger. His assistant has always been an ex-player. Of course many ‘fans’ have probably never heard of Steve Morrow, Kwame Ampadu, Ryan Garry and Greg Lincoln who are all current coaches…
And Freddie Ljunberg, now Adams as well. Not to mention Bobby Pires who does stuff about the place.
Bring back Bergkamp, who is quietly doing his thing at Ajax! Just have the feeling that he would be tactically sound with the right amount / mix of drive, ambition, people skills and obsession.
I honestly dont think getting on air to critisize your players is the main bone of contention here. Heh, if that’s your managemnt style and it bears fruit, good on you man. The topic of clash of egos is even more laughable. However I believe the main issue here is the commitment required to be a coach. It’s not just cones and bibs. There are the long hours of game reviews, planning tactics, opposition review, monitoring player development etc (U-18). Given Wenger’s own commitment to his managerial role, I dont expect him to accept anything less from any manager at… Read more »
“Given Wenger’s own commitment to his managerial role, I dont expect him to accept anything less from any manager at the Arsenal.”
Well put.
That’s a great point.
The ‘publicly criticizing your players’ approach only really works as a last case scenario when things have almost reached a kind of breaking point.
As a possible constant approach it can only lead to mutiny amongst at least some of the players if not the whole squad, which is fine if you have unlimited resources to replace them with more superstars, which we don’t.
The only person who can do both is John McEnroe!
Who did he play for?
He’s a coach for Milos Raonic yet was able to call the Wimbledon final for ESPN.
Wimbledon. Are they Div 1 or Div 2?
Henry is one of my all-time heroes. When he took that gig for sky, barring his cameo some months before where he ran the show (that ultimately led to his employment), his “performances” for Sky have exposed my hero as someone who is far from eloquent and doesn’t say anything engaging or particularly intelligent, as opposed to (I can’t believe I’m saying this) Gary Neville. Sadly, Henry has started to turn into those slimy fools around him; his vocabulary is now littered with clichés like “What a player”, “I think he did fantastic today” and “stick it in the back… Read more »
I think his first appearance were he completely stole the show was a bit of a one-off. In the sense that, it was a necessary voice of reason for one occasion but not something the public are willing to soak up week in week out. It is possible the opinions of the Henry pundit are not the same as the Henry football player/coach. He is probably forced to say things and give criticisms like some uneducated armchair fan to get the debates going. It’s sad really.
Yet another reason why he should drop his punditry gig if he’s serious about coaching. His regurgitation of the same old talking points does nothing but slowly his erode his credibility as a coach. How’s a kid in the U18’s supposed to take advice from someone who seemingly shares the same football tactics as Jamie Redknapp & Carragher?! It’s just not a good look.
Well, it depends. If one is willing to look past the possibilities that his punditry opinions are just there to generate feedback and views, perhaps his actual knowledge of football could be a help to the U-18’s. But, he’s gone now, so whatever.
Yeah that is sad! Well he’s gone now *sigh*
Bloody right too. If Henry is serious about his coaching he should keep away from the media lot. Hardly any of them have the balls for management.
If the issue is about conflict of interest, if I were Henry, I will negotiate to Sky and do punditry only in the non-Arsenal matches and probably would take a salary cut than his current one but at least the conflict of interest would be minimize to a very low margin.
But if the issue is commitment and full focus to club, then Henry needs to choose between punditry or Arsenal.
And I agree with Wenger on this matter.
He has an obvious choice I think since he has ties in both England and France – do his punditry in one country and his badges in the other. He won’t be critiquing one employer in front of the TV cameras of another. No conflict of interest, problem solved.
I personally dont give a fish’s tit about Henry, fans don’t cunt off to Barcelona.
The boss is spot on in my opinion, you can’t have it both ways.
Absolutely right. You’re not exactly going to be impartial on the air either are you? He has to choose one over the other. Proper management training from one of the masters or a lobotomy working for the media (albeit with high pay…I’ll take that):D The easier path is the media gig as you can snipe from the sidelines without putting your neck on the line. See Neville. Plenty of (frankly not bad) commentary but when it comes to the real thing with Valencia, not so easy is it? Easy for the pundits many of whom have zero experience managing and… Read more »
Why would you turn your back on £4 mil just for sitting around a table with a bunch of other ex players talking a load of “rollocks!!” most of the time. Anyway just heard he’s turned down the offer from Arsene – no surprise. Instead of all this rubbish talk more importantly why haven’t we signed a striker, a defensive midfielder and a footballing centre back?? Arsene needs to get a move on or Giroud will be our only striker next season!
I’m completely fine with him choosing the sky job if that’s what he wants. It’s his life.
But if he tries to make out that Arsenal are the bad guys in all this I’ll lose a lot of respect for him.
Guardian have picked up on this now. They say TH HAS rejected coaching role and will continue punditry for Planet Murdoch FC.
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/jul/12/thierry-henry-arsenal-arsene-wenger-sky-sports-pundit