Arsenal: Can The Gunners Still Fire?

With the departure of Thierry Henry to FC Barcelona in the summer, a huge empty space has been conceived which should be well nigh impossible to fill in the coming season. Just as David Dein had been the visionary in the club boardroom and Arsene Wenger is the architect off the football pitch, Henry had been the talisman for the club on it and without him Arsenal do look the vulnerable side out of the "Big Four" in the Premiership. The major doubt is whether the Gunners can still fire without Henry.

In the 8 years that the French maestro had been at the club, not only had Henry been the best striker in the English Premier League for most of that period, he had also metamorphosed from just another player at Arsenal to one who became the badge of a revolution; he came to exemplify Wenger's sorcery to transform raw talent into world class standard. A prodigy under Wenger at AS Monaco, Henry was played out of position on the right wing at Juventus and rust was laying its grip on him until Wenger had the good sense to airlift him out of Italy and draft him into the Premiership. The result is, as they say, history.

226 goals in 369 appearances for the Gunners, Henry is also their all-time highest goalscorer. He played with panache, with effectiveness, with enthralling aestheticism and loyalty so much so that parents supporting Arsenal began to look at their newborns in the hope of excavating one or the other physical compatibility with Henry. An Henry-less Arsenal army, as unimaginable as it may be, is also a stark reality and the after-Henry era begins from August 12 against Fulham at the Emirates Stadium. But can it be as inspiring and romantic as the Henry epoch?

The funneling in of $32 million as an aftermath of the Henry deal with Barcelona, an ongoing takeover discussion and the still new Emirates Stadium do portray a somewhat optimistic picture of Arsenal but reality suggests otherwise. The Gunners haven't won a major trophy except the FA Cup since 2004 when they clinched the Premiership title after going the entire season unbeaten; Arsenal did reach the UEFA Champions League final in 2006 and even took the lead against Barca before going down 2-1 but hadn't qualified for the 2006-2007 Champions League until the last day of the season and last season, except a 2-1 defeat to Chelsea in the FA Carling Cup final in extra time, Arsenal could add nothing to their CV. Once touted as the likeliest and most serious challengers to the Manchester United dynasty in England, Arsenal have failed to compete in the Chelsea era even with Henry. And without him, the onus should get more strenuous.

But try telling that to Monsieur Wenger and you would receive an arsenic retort. Even in the absence of Thierry Henry, this Arsenal side are still capable of playing brilliantly and entertaining the romantics, although the effectiveness minus the sharpness that Henry brought to the side should be considerably trimmed. For the last five or six years, Arsenal have played the best football in the land and that's something when you consider that Man United, and not Arsenal, are the most widely recognized English club in the world. When Rafael Benitez at Liverpool was craning out his neck towards his homeland Spain for proven quality and often failing miserably, Wenger was spectacularly succeeding in smuggling talented, young individuals from across Europe into Arsenal. A casual glance at the Arsenal starting XI would attest to that. No English players but none can deny that the foreign players all have more calibre. If Kolo Toure has been the best and most consistent central defender in the Premiership for the past two seasons, then Cesc Fabregas has been the best teenage footballer and also the best box-to-box player. And both have been the gifts of Wenger's hawk-eye vision.