[Dirtycheat]

well fergie recently came out to defend wengers decision to sell henry for just 16 million punds, only 12 months after rejecting a 50 million pound bid for him from barcelona.

Originally Posted by espn sport

Fergie: Arsenal better off without Henry

Manchester United boss Sir Alex Ferguson expects Arsenal to be a better team next season without talisman Thierry Henry. Henry's departure to Barcelona has led to predictions of Arsene Wenger's side struggling for inspiration, but Ferguson feels it could have the opposite effect.

Arsenal have not finished outside the top four of the Premier League since Wenger was appointed in 1996 and Ferguson believes they will be in the top four along with United.

'They'll be in the top four,' said Ferguson on Sky Sports News. 'I'm more convinced they will be in the top four without Thierry Henry. I just thought it was time for him to go. Arsene Wenger knew that, and I think they'll do better.'

Wenger is continuing preparations for the post-Henry era by fielding a strong line-up against Barnet in a friendly at the weekend.

'It could be a very strong team at Barnet,' Wenger told www.Arsenal.com.

'Basically the players that are back in training are available, so you could see Kolo Toure, Manuel Almunia, Gael Clichy, Mathieu Flamini, Denilson, Theo Walcott, Robin van Persie and Emmanuel Adebayor.

'They are all likely to be included so it should be a very familiar side.'

Wenger has just completed the signing of France Under-21 defender Bacary Sagna from Auxerre, his fourth signing of the summer.

'We've been very impressed by him,' said club scout Gilles Grimandi. We've watched him both playing for Auxerre and the under-21 team and scouted him over more than 40 games.

im not sure about that tbh...

[funkdoctorspock]

Makes sense. Star player out injured and other team members play with expectation that:

a. He'll be back to lead them on
b. They won't be as good with him out of the lineup as they are in.

Add to that the conflicting messages Henry had from week to week. Henry was only fooling the fans. He should have left last season. The way he left this past season was pretty cruel.

A change had to be made. I'm just puzzled that Barcelona only had to pay 16 million pounds. That's including injuries, age, etc.

Arsene Wenger knows what he's doing. I think the injury situation last campaign threw him and the players off, along with Manchester United and Chelsea taking off from the rest of the league. Seems like he has so far made an attempt to compensate for areas that needing upgrading and imo that they won't go through the injury situation like they did last season.

[GocartMozart]

it's a sweet and sour scenario. on one hand he's been the best striker the league for a long time and one of the most influential players in football. it's sad that he's languished with a team like arsenal for so long when he probably could have won so much with some continental teams. Arsenal will obviously feel the gap, but it's necessary for the league and the team to move past Henry. As much as he is a star, the team relied on him to too great an extent and it might have weighed on some of the players.

[ja_shotta]

I've repeatedly said that losing Henry is not gonna affect this team as greatly as people think . My main concern with the transfer was how cheaply he went , there is simply no reasonable explanation anyone can give me or him going for anything less than 24 million pounds