by Steven Dennis

Created on: July 05, 2007

Once it was confirmed that Henry had joined Barcelona, it wasn't as much of a shock as it would have been over a year ago. But why? Henry for all his brilliance was a figure of his normal self last year when fit, and that wasn't often. A tiring workload of a domestic campaign and a world cup seemed to have finally caught up with Henry and he became susceptible to injuries. Arsenal for all their breath-taking football need a finisher, last year they were missing that with Henry out. So Arsene Wenger's decision to offload him for a fee of 16.1 million pounds seems strange. However Wenger has been in this situation before and has won time and time again. He had no fear in offloading Patrick Vieira, Nicolas Anelka, Emmanuel Petit or Marc Overmars when the time was right. This time though I feel he may have made a grave mistake. Henry may be 30 now but he still had two years at the top level, and he would if fit score 20 premiership goals the amount a team needs, to be challenging for the title. By replacing Henry with an unknown striker too many, known as Eduardo Da Silva from Dinamo Zagreb for 8 million pounds. This could be another master piece of transfer bargaining by Wenger, or it could become one of his few poor dealings (anyone remember Francis Jeffers 10m). The effect of Henry leaving may become massive with Tottenham strengthening and really looking able to compete with the big four next year, Arsenal may struggle to finish fourth. If this happened the effects would be catastrophic, the revenue lost from not gaining qualification to the Champions League is huge. With Arsene Wenger yet to sign a new contract which has one year left to run, a poor showing next year could mean his last. And although without Henry, Arsenal could still be a force to be reckoned with next year, losing Wenger would be an impossible gap to fill and would bring the end of the glory days for Arsenal. But will Henry's departure lead to Wenger's? It could all be down to one unknown Eduardo Da Silva his goal scoring feats in Croatia are phenomenal 34 goals in 32 appearances last year. If he can't adapt to the premiership I don't see Arsenal scoring enough goals to challenge for fourth place let alone the championship. Could Wenger and Henry yet be re-united at Barcelona? It really is high stakes for Arsenal this year, a promising season awaits.

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