Wot no game?

Welcome to the strange world of having no weekend games despite there being no international games either. I might have to watch some rugby instead.

The big, much reported but probably not hugely surprising news is that we’ve got to play the final ten games of the season without Thierry Henry. Despite having been injured all season, he’s still managed 12 goals in 24 starts, and with a player as extravagantly gifted as he is you can say with some certainty that had he been fit it would have been another 30+ goal season from him.

All the strops, the petulance and the hang-dog looks make a bit more sense when you take his patent lack of fitness into account. He knew he wasn’t operating to the best of his potential. For a man who has come close to being – should have been in my view – voted the best player in Europe that must have been hugely frustrating.

So for me, it’s a blessing in disguise. I can’t wait to have him back at 100% next season, I really can’t. It’ll be like having a new player.

To countenance selling on the back of one bad season is, as the arseblogger reasons, poppycock, balderdash and, if I might say, piffle. We lost the experience of Pires, Bergkamp and Campbell last season, and this season has proved, if nothing else, that losing more experience is the last thing we need. Especially when that experience will guarantee you a huge amount of goals.

We’ve got ten games to secure third or fourth, and while it’s true that we’re in a far better position to achieve that this year than we were at the same stage last year, we must not be complacent. We’ve actually got a really tough run-in, with six of our games coming away and just four at home. Our away games are tough ones too, all of them.

The million dollar question now is how to cajole more goals out of Adebayor, Baptista, Walcott, Aliadiere, Fabregas, Hleb, Ljungberg and Rosicky, our goalscoring underachievers.

How many league goals have those eight players, all strikers or midfielders, contributed?

The same as Thierry Henry, actually. Ten.

So an unfit Henry has scored the same amount of league goals as eight of his team-mates combined.