Oui we have non Frenchmen – Hammers Preview

Henry
By Boris Mellor
September 23 2005

Unless Flamini or Clichy starts on Saturday we might have a starting eleven with no French players (Henry and Pires are still injured). When was the last time that happened? Even if it’s only one French starter it will be very unusual. Will the press make all the fuss they did when our squad had no English players in it – probably not.

Some prefer to see it as a striker crisis – is it a crisis when Sol is on such good form ha h? And if we still can’t get goals Cygan can come off the bench as a striker. Besides we still have Reyes and van Persie, and they need to start scoring now. They will never have a better chance to make a name for themselves.

West Ham is never an easy game and they are flying at the moment, but we are the toughest test they have faced so far. However, Wenger has to juggle Saturday’s game with the fact that we are away to Ajax on the Tuesday; and is carrying a long list of injuries. Nobody should write this fixture off as easy. Two attacking teams can cancel each other out; plus Arsenal have a habit of losing concentration in the second half of games when Europe is the next match. Getting to two nil up and then coasting in the second half has led to some awful results in the past.

Finally the Daily Mirror’s month of vitriol against Wenger continues with a massive story in today’s issue that Henry will be at Barca next year. Quite unsettling before a big Derby. Firstly Henry has two years to go on his contract, and we need to wait until we hear from him before jumping to rash conclusions. I can’t see him breaking a contract but the Arsenal press office should deal with this. No doubt they will react with all the speed of a one legged Hare coming out of the traps at a Greyhound Meeting.