Former Arsenal chief Keith Edelman has revealed the real reason club legend Thierry Henry left the club for Barcelona in 2007.
Henry departed as Arsenal’s record goalscorer – a title he still holds – after eight years at the club, in which he won three FA Cups and two Premier League titles.
At the age of 29 he was offered the chance to sign for Barcelona under Pep Guardiola and played a key role in their 2008/2009 treble win in a fearsome front three with Samuel Eto’o and Lionel Messi at the Non Camp.
It was the dream move for Henry and it was thought at the time that Arsenal had little choice but to grant him his exit wish, but Edelman – who was was Arsenal’s managing director at the time – claims they were more than happy to accept the Catalans’ £20m offer for a “dead” player “on the downward trap”.
He told The Sun: “The reason Thierry moved on was because he was losing his speed. His game was basically all about speed.
“And if you lose your speed, then you’re dead. So, we got money for him despite the fact that he was on the downward trap.
“It’s like Kevin De Bruyne. Would you have been better to sell him for more money at the end of last year? Or keep him and risk that he’d keep going this season?”
Henry later made an emotional returned to Arsenal on loan from New York Red Bulls, but the Gunners were by that point fighting for Champions League qualification rather than the title.
“Building a team goes in waves,” said Edelman, referring to the challenge Arsene Wenger faced in the second half of his reign.
“If you’ve got endless amounts of money, as Manchester City had, you could keep a team going longer.
“I’d argue there’s probably only 20 world-class players in the whole Premier League, which is a very small number.
“Therefore, replacing world-class players is very difficult.
“And therefore, if you win things, you have a lot of world-class players because that’s how you win things. But when they get older, it’s very difficult to replace them.
“You’ve got to look at how many world-class players you’ve got in your team, and they won’t be world-class forever, they get older and tend to dip.
“This is what I mean about looking at things strategically.
“You’ve got to ask the right questions. You’ve got to be probing. I don’t think a lot of people do that.
“Arsenal were, in the Invincible years, were really lucky because, they had Thierry Henry, Patrick Vieira, Robert Pires, Sol Campbell and Gilberto Silva, there’s five world-class players.”