FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

Sports

If Thierry Henry Leaves His Arsenal Coaching Role, The Responsibility Is His Alone

Arsène Wenger is bound to take the flak for the decision, but the truth of the matter is that Henry’s role at Sky represents a conflict of interest.
PA Images

This article originally appeared on VICE Sports UK.

If there's one thing that can be guaranteed ahead of the new Premier League season, it's that things are going to get acrimonious at Arsenal. No matter how well the team perform in the long run, every setback will be met with vitriol, bitterness and impotent rage. That is, in part, the responsibility of the club's management and hierarchy, with the disappointment of last season hanging over Islington like a stormcloud. On the other hand, there's a sense in which fury and frustration are the flavour of the month at Arsenal. The fans are perpetually angry. That's simply how it is these days.

Advertisement

The feverish mood of the supporters perhaps explains the irate reaction to the news which came out of the club early on Tuesday morning. Thierry Henry looks set to leave his role as a youth coach, and be denied a chance to mentor Arsenal's Under-18s. The Telegraph reports that Andries Jonker, head of the Arsenal academy, had offered Henry the opportunity to complete his UEFA pro licence with the Under-18 side, only for Arsène Wenger to personally intervene. According to several reports, Wenger informed Henry that a position with the Under-18s must be a full-time role, and could not feasibly be combined with his job as a pundit for Sky.

With Henry now seemingly on his way out of the club, the predictable backlash has already begun. Considering the almost Christ-like adoration Henry receives from the majority of fans – and understandably so – a perceived slight against him was always likely to stoke the fires. He is beloved of Arsenal fans for his iconic goals and the silverware that came with them but, more importantly, he is an emblem of a bygone age when Highbury was a fortress and its occupants the greatest team in the land. Those days are long gone, with the club transitioning away from their spiritual home and away from an era of unprecedented success. The man who has presided over that transition is, on the surface at least, Arsène Wenger.

It's not hard to understand how Henry's departure represents a flashpoint, as far as discontented fans are concerned. Naturally, it doesn't look good when a hard-pressed manager denies a club legend an in-house position. The narrative is all too easy, really. This is about Wenger feeling threatened. This is about Wenger rejecting a fan favourite. This is about Wenger spiting his critics.

Advertisement

Except, looking at it objectively, it's not about any of those things.

Strip back the narrative, and the truth of the matter is that Henry's role at Sky represents a conflict of interest. There is not a single top-flight manager who would employ a coach at his club, if that coach was also a major pundit expected to criticise him in front of millions of viewers. In the strict hierarchy of football management, it would be a dereliction of duty for a manager to offer a job to someone who might publicly undermine him. That is not to say that Henry has an agenda when it comes to Wenger, only that Sky punditry and a junior coaching role are, for good reason, mutually exclusive.

When it comes to enacting a vision for the future, football clubs are not democracies, and internal debates are not played out in public. Discipline and authority are absolutely necessary for a club to function, and there is no room for open dissent from junior coaches. One of the primary reasons that Sky employ Henry is so he can provide a critical voice when it comes to Arsenal, and that makes him inherently unsuitable to be Arsène Wenger's subordinate. With a difficult season ahead, the last thing Arsenal need is to subvert the chain of command.

That's why – despite his offer to work for free – Wenger is entirely right to turn his protégé away, and why criticism of Wenger here is massively misdirected. Henry has been asked to choose between punditry and coaching, and appears to have picked the former. Ultimately, the responsibility for that choice is his alone.

@W_F_Magee