Five minutes after his return to the Emirates, Thierry Henry gives a quick seminar on goalscoring to Arsenal’s wasteful strikers:
OK, now Theo, pay attention: control the ball, then inside of the right foot; just aim for the far corner; no far corner; far corner; far…. oh OK, aim for the keeper then……
OK now you try it Andrei, inside of the foot, no not the outside; no not the instep; no not the shin; no Andrei, definitely not the knee.. nor the other foot. Just inside of the right foot, easy, and there it goes:
How about you Gervinho, would you like to try? Inside of the foot, easy as that; no, try to keep it on the ground if you can; yes I know the crowd likes to catch the ball, but not all the way back in row Z. Try again, easy, inside of the foot
Were you watching that Marouane, just the inside of the foot, nice and easy; well you do need to run past the defender first, onto the ball, then you can do it. OK, try again, past the defender, inside of the foot, no not back to our defender, past him … inside of the foot, nice and easy:
OK Alex, did you get that? Nice and easy, inside of the foot, keep it on the ground: no, no, not va va voom, just easy, inside of the foot, caress it like you do your girlfriend; you don’t have a girlfriend ‘cos you’re only sixteen; you eengleesh, I forget you are so funny; just imagine you had a girlfriend….. OK, imagine your parents took the boxing gloves away: easy, inside of the foot, stroke it past the keeper and…… into the corner, there you go:
OK, now check the linesman’s not being a deek,
turn and run to the crowd:
then to the Boss
– ignore the defender, they’ll try anything to mark this close during a game:
Simples!! OK, I’m off back to America, you practice that till I get back next year, then we’ll try the killer pass. But first, a bit of community singing – are you ready?
One-nil to the Ar-sen-al, one-nil to the Ar-sen-al, one-nil to the Ar-sen-al, one-nil …..