THIERRY HENRY STILL believes that he can be a successful coach despite falling flat at Monaco, as the former Arsenal star waits for his next chance to prove himself as a manager.
The French legend took charge at his former club in October 2018 following Leonardo Jardim’s dismissal, stepping into a Monaco team in a relegation fight.
That fight got no better under Henry, who was sacked just three months later and replaced by Jardim after four wins and five draws from 20 matches in charge.
But Henry says that, despite that setback, he still sees himself as someone that can coach at a top-level club if just given the chance.
“I don’t think about the negative, I think about the positive. That’s why I went to Monaco and that’s why I still want to be a coach. You think about having a positive impact,” he told the Telegraph.
Call me crazy if you want, but I love football and I believe I can be a successful coach. I’m not thinking about the pain, I’m not thinking about failure. I don’t like easy.
“I like to lead and it’s on me to make it happen. The same when I joined Arsenal as a player, the same when I went to Belgium with Roberto. It’s an evolution.
“Communication and honesty from the start is key. What’s the job? Is the job to stay up, is the job to win the League or be in the Champions League?
“But how and what is success? Is success improving players? Ultimately, results are the most important thing, but I want to improve players as well.”
Henry acknowledges that his time at Monaco is poor, but the legendary striker also says he stepped into a task that was quite difficult.
The Frenchman was handed a squad that ended up finishing 17th at the end of the season under Jardim.
Henry also says he expected to be given more time to fix the team and mould it to his vision, but he was never given that time as Monaco moved on in an attempt to secure their survival from relegation.
“There is something I always say,” Henry said.
You win or you learn, and, as you can imagine, I learned a lot. I still have Monaco in my heart, it’s the club that gave me my first opportunity as a player and gave me my first opportunity as a coach, so I will always be thankful to the people who gave me that, people who are there, some are gone.
“My heart talked at the time. I wanted to go back to where I started everything. I have zero regrets about what happened. It was a very difficult task and I felt that if I’d had more time I could have done more. But if you don’t get results, no matter what the circumstances, you have to go.
“All I would say is that if you don’t pass that line and sit on the bench, then you don’t know everything. I’ve heard a lot of people give their opinion on what happened at Monaco and, boy, they were wrong, but I will never go into details.
“If I knew I only had three months, then maybe I would have acted a different way, but I was trying to plan something for the future and doing that in such a little amount of time is very difficult.
“I’m proud of what we did achieve with such a young team. We had to win in Caen and Amiens, and those six points were very important. I had no doubt that team was going to stay up because there was enough quality.
“I came out of it fully reassured that’s what I want to do, zero doubt about it. I saw some of my ex-coaches after I left and they said ‘now you can say you are a coach because you’ve been sacked. Now you are a coach Thierry’. I am not complaining and I can only say thank you to everybody, but to build a legacy and build something for the future, it takes time.”
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Maybe utd can give him a chance at Christmas when solskjaer is sacked (with Gary Neville as his assistant)
@Dan2078: That would be the best Christmas present ever
Cruyff, Beckenbauer, and Guardiola, truly great players that went on to become great managers, after that I’d struggle to come up with many more maybe Dalglish(no European experience as manager) Zidane(jury still out on management) Point is, great footballers don’t automatically make great managers, I’m thinking Henry will definitely fall into that bracket. Out of today’s great players that are now in management, the only one I can think of that has potential is Lampard. Sorry to any Steve G fans, I just can’t see him as a great manager, and I wouldn’t class Òle as a great player, he was good, but not a great outside of Utd fans.
@Devilsavocado: you do know Zidane has won 3 champions League as manger right? If that isn’t success I don’t know what is. He has a rebuilding job on at the moment but nobody can argue with 3 Successive champions League winners medal as manager. Will go down down in the history books as both a great manager and player
@Devilsavocado: I think by Guardiolas own admission he wasn’t a great player. He was an average player in an average Barcelona team and was moved on by the time he was 30.
@Gareth Keenan: he wasn’t a Great, but he was much more than average. Do you remember him? Well, I do. He, like all the hundreds of players playing at very high levels, e.g. for teams in the top division(s) of most county’s leagues, are elites.
@Philip Fox: I do remember him well yeah, that’s my generation of football. He didn’t stand out in what was an OK Barcelona team relatively speaking. And listen its all subjective, one man’s great is anothers decent so most of the terms we use are interchangeable. But my point was more to do with the original post comparing him to Cruyff and Beckenbauer. Guardiola was nowhere near that level. They were proper elite.
@Gareth Keenan: Pep was a magnificent footballer. His central midfield role was pivotal to how Barca have played since the 90s and he was arguably the most important player in Cryuff’s dream team that won everything.
@Gareth Keenan: I agree that he was nowhere near the level of Cruyff or Beckenbauer, because they were geniuses, and Pep wasn’t. Calling him average, and Barcelona OK is laughable though. An average footballer is someone in the third tier of English, or fourth maybe. Tier one and two are mostly elite.
@Philip Fox: you’d call someone playing in the lower level of the championship in England an an elite footballer? I’d call that laughable. Its all semantics though.
@Steve Hal: yes he did three champions leagues in a row, and as I said the jury is still out for me, he did that with the same team, brought in only a couple of players that were ok, but kept the massive portion of the team he inherited, let’s see him build his own team then over a decade rebuild a team and have success before we consider him a great manager. Ps. have a look at all his signings he has made as manager of Real, far from impressive.
@Gareth Keenan: Guardiola was a fabulous footballer and was the midfield general for one of the most successful periods in Barcelona’s history. Like a lot of great players he is being quite modest by saying he wasn’t a “great” player, in my opinion he was just as good as Roy Keane, with a bit more creativity.
@Devilsavocado: absolutely , Guardiola as a player was like Xavi … he made it look efffortless and won lots of trophies for a Barca team that were anything but average and played wonderful football . I’m a Real Madrid fan but that Barca team was a joy to watch , despite getting hockeyed by Milan in 94 . Laudrup, Stoichkov , Bakero , Beguiristain , Ferrer ,Sergi , Nadal , Koeman , the only weakness was Busquets in goal after Zubizarreta retired .
@Limón Madrugada: the Busquets family curse of being the seemingly average one in any team strikes again.
What a spoofer.
Not sure he can “handle” the pressure.
Handball Henry. Karma
Bulls hitter.
Dreamer