Arsenal will speak to club legend Thierry Henry about succeeding Arsene Wenger early next week, according to reports in Sky Sports.
The report states that Mikel Arteta still remains the favourite to take over the manager job, but the Gunners executives will continue to interview the other candidates before taking a final call. The North London club want to fill up the vacant job before the start of the World Cup.
The former striker and current Assistant coach of Belgium has always expressed his desire to manage the Emirates club at some point in the future.
Henry and Arsene Wenger seem to have fallen apart with the ex-striker departing the club in 2016 due to disagreements over Henry’s role as a Sky Sports pundit. As at the time, Wenger reportedly asked him to make a choice between continuing as a coach of the youth teams or keeping his job as a pundit.
Ever since his departure, he has been quite critical of Wenger’s man-management style in a season where Arsenal finished 6th. Arsenal intend to build a whole new management set up and the ex-striker is seen as the perfect personality to unite Arsenal fans due to his cult-like status.
Henry has still not extended his contract with the Belgium national team which is set to expire after the World Cup, so expectations regarding his return will gather momentum in the coming weeks. What his new role will be when he returns and how successful his comeback will be remains to be seen.
On the surface, it looks like a good move and one which will benefit the club on the short if not the long term. Also drawing from the managerial and technical expertise of Sporting director, Raul Sanllehi and Arsenal’s Head of recruitment, Sven Mislintat may actually be the right combination Arsenal need to salvage whatever fortunes they have left.
