Arsenal: Thierry Henry's Return to the Club Comes at the Perfect Time

There was nothing prodigal about the way Thierry Henry, the all-time leading scorer of Arsenal Football Club with 226 goals spread majestically, powerfully and craftily over the course of 370 total appearances in eight seasons, left north London for the famed Blaugrana of FC Barcelona back in the summer of 2007.

Then, it had seemed his time had finally come to bid farewell to the club. Brushing up against 30 years of age and having accomplished nearly everything one can at club level:

• two Premiership titles (2001-02, 2003-04)
• three FA Cup titles (2002, 2003, 2005)
• four Golden Boot awards as the Premier League's top scorer (2001-02, 2003-04, 2004-05, 2005-06)
• two PFA Player of the Year awards (2002-03, 2003-04)
• six consecutive appearances in the PFA Team of the Year (2001-06)

There was no logical reason to begrudge the move.

Only a Champions League winner's medal eluded the pacy Frenchman during his stay in London Colney, and he so very nearly captured that crown against Barcelona in May 2006. That match had, fittingly enough, taken place at the Stade de France in Saint-Denis, a suburb (banlieue) abutting Paris.

Henry had grown up in another Parisian suburb—the southwestern banlieue of Les Ulis. It was there that he'd honed his game on the streets. Traces of that instant control and daring to try the unfathomable (we'll revisit that trait later) learned in those rapid-paced, small-sided games remained embedded in his footballing nature throughout his career, conjoining with the skills he learned in youth academies.

Winning the Champions League in the arena where he'd tasted the ultimate footballing glory with the World Cup-winning French national team back in 1998 would have been the perfect way to seal his cupboard with the Gunners, but he wouldn't have to wait long to get his hands on that particular trophy.

Henry would go on to win the CL title in 2009 with Barcelona, starting in the final against Manchester United in Rome in an eventual 2-0 victory. That became a particularly significant notch in what was to become an unprecedented run of dominance by the Catalans, who swept to six trophies in total that historic year.

His Catalan sojourn came to an end in the summer of 2010, when he joined New York Red Bulls under the MLS's designated player rule (each club is allowed to sign one player who does not count toward the salary cap.)

History lesson complete, we focus back to Arsenal, to whom the Frenchman's magnum opus of a career has now swung back.

Henry is inextricably linked to Arsenal. It was he (then as the No. 14) who scored the final goal at Highbury back in 2006 on the last match day of that hallowed ground's existence. It was the perfect close, with Henry cementing his club legend in indelible fashion in the environ that had turned him into a star.

Having ushered Arsenal into the gleaming new Emirates stadium for the 2006-07 season as team captain, it was nonetheless evident to everyone—Arsene Wenger included—that Henry was entitled to pursue that elusive Champions League medal elsewhere as Arsenal entered into a phase of rebuilding (some might quip they've yet to enter phase two of the experiment).

With Henry departed, yet another player was phased out of that epic Invincibles side of 2003-04. Nothing does last—at least in certain forms—and Gunners fans were forced to say goodbye to perhaps the greatest player ever to grace the Premier League in that heartbreaking summer of 2007.

But just as it had been when he left Arsenal four-and-a-half years ago, there's something wonderfully symmetric in his return to Ashburton Grove in these nascent days of 2012 (although he had been training with the club since November and had also trained with them in winter 2011).

His time with Arsenal will be far briefer this time 'round than those eight, wondrous years of first glory (after extensive negotiations, Arsenal hashed out a two-month loan deal with New York Red Bulls and MLS that will see Henry back to America for the league's season opener on March 10).

But it will be something spectacular to watch; I rest assured of that. The Frenchman has admitted in an exclusive interview on Arsenal's official website to having "changed his game," but that's to be expected at this juncture of his career.

I've enjoyed reading his personal assessments; he realizes that in order to be effective in the rigorous pace of the modern Premier League, he will have to make adjustments in his play as Bergkamp did years before.

Without the benefit of the searing pace he once called upon with ruthless efficiency, Henry has become more of a cerebral option in attack, cutting apart defenses in a different manner.

His movement and positioning have always been exceptional, and he has always possessed a superb capacity to spread play (one of my fondest-ever memories was of watching Henry play with the French national team in a World Cup qualifier against Austria at the Stade de France in October of 2009.

Dropping into the midfield from his position in attack, his technique was a wonder to watch live. He included teammates into play with consummate ease. In a word, it was "fluidity").

To say the man is humbled would be a stretch of the imagination. I deem him a realist. He has accepted that in order to continue playing at a high level, he must evolve as an attacking option. That's the mark of a consummate professional—something Arsenal could use at this juncture.

Henry has been so effusive in his love for Arsenal over the years since his departure. One feels he truly considers the club an extension of that elusive notion which each and every one of us searches for at one stage or another during this life filled with that uncertainty and despair—home.

This is a man who professes to be bubbling with excitement to reignite his "love story" with his former club. To all those who might announce that you can never go home once you've left, Henry has shown otherwise. He has returned with a sense of grace and virtue, with a self-appointed mandate to help the club enter into another phase of glory, perhaps like the one he enjoyed almost a decade ago.

Just as Odysseus wandered the oceans for however many tens of years after the Trojan War (I apologize—my freshman English memory has devolved into a hazy, amorphous mess at this point) before returning, frazzled but intact, to his family, Henry has come back to the club he once admitted he would accept employment as a waterboy after the conclusion of his playing career (always brings a chuckle to think of that impossible image).

Odysseus found his home in disrepute upon his own return; suitors were chasing after his wife with indecent abandon. Arsenal are certainly not in that sort of state, but their stature has certainly dimmed since the heights enjoyed during Henry's prime.

Odds are, he won't lead them back to glory in two months. But he can certainly send them in the right direction (of which I feel certain, finally, that they are finally on the right path). There are players who can learn from his example. There's no doubt that Henry will not stand for Andrei Arshavin's maddening half-hearted displays; even if the Russian is on the way out, he can still improve.

Park Chu-Young, a player Wenger has said is on the cusp of making a concerted impact with the club, can learn from Henry's incisive runs and impressive positioning. I believe the Korean can become an impact player. Who better to learn from than the greatest forward ever seen in Premier League history?

Henry won't be the same player he once was for the Gunners, but that matters little to me.

I prefer to think of him as he was in his prime. In those wondrous years, he came as close to becoming unstoppable as any player I'd ever seen. And there's one moment during that period that sticks out above the rest.

That volleyed goal against Manchester United in 2000—at Highbury of course (could it be any other way?)—will remain forever undimmed in my memory as the height of Henry's majesty.

It was the perfect encapsulation of Henry—spontaneity and technique, morphed into legend. That perfectly looping drive had the power of Ronaldo and the precision of Messi. And that's what makes it so special.

Henry is neither of those two players. After all, how could he be? In that moment, he was just himself. Power and class, rolled up into the superbly bred footballer we all knew and loved.

And now he's back (strangely as No. 12—Theo Walcott currently wears his old No. 14), slowed somewhat by the inexorable effect of time but still a cerebral resource and a man who can be counted upon to lead a new generation of Gunners—many of whom weren't with the first team at Arsenal when he left in 2007. He has embraced the role of teacher; he genuinely wishes to help them ascend.

And we'll be watching, with bated breath, every step of the way until March.

That statue depicting Henry's legendary celebration against Tottenham (again, at Highbury) in 2002, unveiled a month ago in commemoration of Arsenal's 125th year of existence, says it all.

If Arsenal are to return to former glory, then who better to lead them?