ok first post in a while as have been away a fair bit.
Absolutely devastated by the news but slowl coming to terms with it - today was closure for me and my 7 year old son when we took down the Henry posters off his bedroom wall!!
As for the fee - yes £16 mill is light but lets remember he has no sell on value. When people are paying 16 mill for Bent its because they know that in the vast majority of cases if he were to be sold they would recoup more than 50%so in effect its much lower. Also Henry was on c. £150,000 a week - thats £7.5 mill a year. Bent will be on probably £30,000 i.e. £1.5 mill a year. Over 4 years thats £6mill v £30 mill a difference of £24 mill. No one other than chelsea is gonna pay £150,000 a week and say £30 mill. So in the light of this, unfortunately whilst it seems a low figure, there is plenty of justification - we have also saved ourselves 3 years of £7.5 m pa so thats another £22.5 mill.
Henry is a hero to me. A professional footballer and for once the word professional can not be used lightly. He graced the premiership and his true professionalism both on and off the pitch are an example to all todays English p*ss head troublemaker baby bentley boys.
For me the real villain here is the Arsenal board. They did not think through the consequences of 'sacking' David Dein - a man who's only crime was to see his beloved Arsenal progress and keep up with the pace of 21st Century big business football. I am sorry Mr Hill Wood and Mr Tax Exile Fiszmann but elegant board rooms and history whilst important will leave us behind to every team that is being bought by billionaire businessmen, from Man City to Newcastle and Birmingham (soon) to Villa.
As for the future - this is make or break for Arsenal. This is a real turning point and what happens in the transfer window will have a huge influence on our future. There is no doubt that with Henry we were often a 1 man team with no recognised striker - most forwards could not work with him and everything went through him. Times change and now is a new era. I supect a lot of the play now will come via Cesc and this year will be big for Robin Van Persie. However we need a world class striker quick.
Lets not forget we finished 20 odd points behind Man Ure last season and since then we have lost our talisman, captain and record goalscorer. They on the other hand have spent £50 odd million!! Oh Dear!!
Anyway heads up Gooners - lets thank Thierry for the memories and move on with a good young squad that should hopefully be strengthened now.
I too beleive that this is the problem. It was a bad day for Arsenal when Dein left and I think this day was inevitable and I think it is inevitable that in 12 months we will be looking for a new manager.
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