Henry: A Less Than Stellar Performance
I’m a big fan of Thierry Henry, but I am a bit disappointed by his performance yesterday. Not in the game. He was on fire during the game, especially at the beginning of the match where he had 2 fine chances. But his post game press conference left a bad taste in my mouth.
Understandably he was disappointed. The entire Arsenal squad worked hard and they came so close. But a lot of his post match comments just sounded like sour grapes, especially when he spoke of the officiating. (Read excerpts from the BBC and Sporting Life.) In my mind, a captain needs to rise above the petty “blame the officials” game.
I don’t know if the referee was wearing a Barcelona shirt because they kicked me all over the place. If the referee did not want us to win he should have said so from the off.
Maybe next time I’ll learn how to dive. I expect the referee to do his job but I don’t think he did.
Sorry Thiery, I didn’t see it. While I agree the ref did make some questionable calls, he made them on both sides of the pitch. The foul on Eboue that set up Campbell’s goal was a poor call, but there was no question Lehmann should have been penalized for the trip on Eto’o.
It was a fantastic game, even if the final result wasn’t what Arsenal fans were looking for. Arsenal was strong (amazing when you consider they played most of the game down a man), but they failed to capitalize on numerous chances – a number of which came off the end of Henry’s foot. In the end, you could see the team running out of gas. There is no way you can hold back Barca for 70+ minutes when you are down a man, regardless of how invisible Ronaldhino was.
Arsenal should be proud and Henry as the captain should have done the gracious thing in the post game conference – congratulate the winner, praise his team and leave it at that.
On the bright side, I wonder if this sounds like a guy who might be going to Barca?
Everyone was talking about Ronaldinho before the game. I didn’t see him today and I didn’t see Eto’o.
I can’t imagine a statement like that (as true as it is) will be appreciated by his potential future teammates. Maybe it’s a sign from Henry that Barca is not his final destination for next season?
I was a little surprised about how bitter Henry was after the game, as I don’t think it makes too much sense for him to complain about the officials. They were all right. Lehmann was beat in the 18th minute and committed a red-card foul. Arsenal was fortunate that they didn’t have to play 70 minutes down 0:1 as an advantage could have been allowed to Barcelona on that play.
In the end, Henry had his two chances, both very early in the game, and made a beautiful play on the free kick to set up Campbell (free kick set up by, you guessed it, an Arsenal player who apparently could teach Henry all about diving). Ronaldinho didn’t do anything with his early set plays. The last 2/3 of the game, neither did much. They both played below their ability but also, the two teams knew who they didn’t want beating them. It turned out Henrik Larsson was the man to beat a tired Arsenal team with their #2 goalie in net.
One of the more interesting games I’ve seen.