Thierry Henry is one of French football’s hottest properties. He was the spearhead of France’s attack in their triumphant Euro 2000 championship side after playing as a winger for them during their World Cup ‘98 win, but did have a miserable time in Japan 2002.

The only criticism levelled at Henry — and one readily accepted by the player himself — is that he doesn’t possess the instinctive finishing skills of a natural striker, despite regularly finishing with 20-plus, and now 30-plus, goals a season.

Nevertheless, Henry’s love of the spectacular has made him a crowd favourite at Highbury and his spectacular volleyed winner against Manchester United in 2000/01 will surely go down as one of the greatest goals the famous old ground has ever seen.

Henry scored 33 goals in Arsenal’s Double-winning season 2001/02, and was an automatic choice for France’s 2002 World Cup Squad. During the season he became well-known for his habit of lifting his shirt up when celebrating a goal, to display a message on his vest. To go

to the effort of having them printed shows the sign of a striker with confidence that he will have a goal to celebrate.

The 2002/03 season was undoubtedly Thierry Henry’s best season since moving to England. He scored 32 goals in all competitions and narrowly missed out on the Barclaycard Premiership Golden Boot.

His exciting style and scary pace was a joy to watch and he was acknowledged for his brilliant season winning the Football Writers Player of the Year and Professional Footballers Association Player of the Year Awards.

The season 2003/04 was even better for Henry. He scored 41 goals in all competitions and at times looked simply unstoppable. He deservedly won both the Player of the Year trophies for the second year in a row, as well as helping Arsenal to an unbeaten championship.

Euro 2004 was rather more disappointing though as, despite scoring two goals against Switzerland, Henry could not inspire France to glory as they crashed out in the quarter-finals.

However, he picked himself up after that defeat to take part in an FA Cup-winning season for The Gunners — although he was injured for the final itself.

Continuing to prove himself as fans’ favourite, he made 41 appearances, scoring 30 goals, including a hat-trick against Portsmouth. He shared the Golden Shoe with ex-Manchester United striker Diego Forlan for scoring the most goals in any of the European leagues this season.

His season for the French national side was not quite so successful, however, as they struggled in their World Cup 2006 qualifying group.

On a personal note, Henry became an unwitting part in a race row when Spanish national coach Luis Aragones made some derogatory remarks about the Arsenal striker. Aragones was fined a paltry £2,060 by the Spanish FA. Henry deemed it “laughable”.