pep's opinion: eto'o and the new larsson

my point of view before the transfer summer was: keep and renew eto'o, sell henry for 20 million and bring in some decent second goal scorer (like guiza or milito or crespo or fill in your favourite) so you don't put too much pressure on bojan.

eto'o
for me eto'o is the best centre forward in the world. if you look at goals and work-rate, i can't even see another player come anywhere near. his scoring record is not from this world. eto'o scores and he works hard on the pitch. although like every goal-scorer he's an individualist, he's also very much a team player and isn't that the main thing guardiola is asking from his players?

i also cannot understand how on the one hand guardiola would have wanted a strong guy up front like adebayor or drogba because he wanted to play another system and on the other hand he kept repeating how important the non-strong henry would be as a central striker next season. were there two systems? henry would be hugely important coming off the bench? it doesn't make sense.

his team-mates all came out clearly stating they wanted eto'o with the team. they shouldn't have done that. at least not in the clear way they did. but they all did. cause they know eto'o, they've played with him and they know it works. and they know it doesn't work (that good) with henry up front. and they know it was a risk to bring another guy.

these guys don't want to have fun, they want to win trophies and, even knowing the risks it could bring to hold on to eto'o, they are convinced that eto'o is the best guarantee for the team to win trophies. if for guardiola the team is the most important thing, he should listen to the team. which he did. but probably he should have done it earlier.

eto'o playing for another team would not only have meant him not scoring for us but also him scoring for another team. cause wherever he would have played, he would have scored. eto'o can play every system, every team, every league, he'll always score, every week, or close.

that wouldn't only have meant frustration amongst everyone involved with barcelona about letting eto'o slip away so easily, but it would also have put an immense pressure on whoever would have replaced him. henry already felt that pressure during the pre-season and he apparently couldn't handle it. and this was henry. and this was the pre-season. and this was a press who was giving the new team some time.

you can now only hope the whole matter has been spoken through with eto'o in long and open-hearted face-to-face meetings between all parties concerned, including txiki and laporta, and that they will keep on talking with eto'o all along the season. eto'o('s ego) is hurt and he has every right to be. but if you speak openly and you can find the right words, i'm convinced you can totally win him back for the team. if this hasn't been done (and barcelona officials have recently proved several times that people management isn't their strong point), eto'o is a ticking time bomb.

i would have preferred a press conference involving eto'o, guardiola, laporta, txiki and puyol as captain. eto'o should have apologized for some of his acts during the past years (keeping the statement as vague as possible, so everyone could have given his own interpretation), guardiola and txiki should have admitted eto'o has proved them wrong. in the ideal world, laporta would have announced that eto'o and barcelona have agreed a two-year renewal. and then there would be a bright picture.

that was the way to act, also to give all kinds of speculation in the press no chance. it was really disappointing to see how part of the media, especially el mundo deportivo, has acted over the last weeks. the catalan press is a real problem for fc barcelona.

henry
apart from his performances on the pitch, another reason why it could have been wrong to buy henry last summer is that it prevented eto'o to pick up the mentor role regarding bojan. henry took that role which left eto'o on the side where he didn't have to be the example for the youngster, something he would have loved, i'm sure. i admit i only recently figured that out, so maybe you can't blame the club too much for that.

since few clubs in the world can pay his salary plus a transfer fee and most (all?) of these clubs are english so no option due to the player's arsenal past, henry will most probably be here for three more years so we'll have to make the best of it. how?

first of all, we should be aware that henry has never played 4-3-3, so it is wrong to say that he should be played as a centre forward "cause he has always played there and he did great and he will be great again". he has never played there. i actually think the barcelona left wing position could maybe come closer to the position henry played at arsenal than the barcelona centre forward position.

the arsenal henry i remember is playing up front, falling to the left wing, getting a ball that has been recovered at the back and then henry has time. time to think, time to act. what will i do? do i shoot? do i make a dribble? a run? do i pass the ball to my co-striker (if there is one)? do i wait for one of the running midfielders like pires or ljungberg? or what? he decides and he acts.

barcelona isn't that kind of recover-and-then-quickly-go-forward team, barcelona plays dominantly, they have possession, they play on the half on the opponent who holds nine men behind the ball and certainly as centre forward that means: no time. no time to think, no time to act. no five ball touches. two defenders in your neck. one second. one touch. one chance. every game.

henry already played several matches as centre forward last season in the barcelona 4-3-3 when eto'o got injured at the start of the season and it didn't work. he came back from injury, he had to adapt to a new league, a new system, new team-mates, that's all true. but it's also true it didn't work. which doesn't mean it couldn't work this season but you should be aware of the past and learn from it.

henry should be clearly told he will be mainly a bench player and he should make that switch in his head, otherwise he'll fail. he's not a star anymore, not the key player, he's not the one who can scream at his team-mates when he doesn't get every ball, he's just one of the guys and he should fully realize that, accept that and act to that. he's number two as centre forward and at times he'll even be number three.

on the pitch he should lay off that mixture of french arrogance and fake london cool and just do his job without this drama queen behaviour of stop running every time a defender blows in his neck, lifting his arms up to the sky, putting his arms in his sides and shaking his head when the referees don't act like he think they should have acted.

henry should basically become a humble, scoring team servant. to achieve that i would advice sending henry on a one-week holiday to sweden after the wisla game so he can learn from the master. the transfer fee and the salary make a comparison difficult, but let's hope at least on the pitch henry will become the new larsson.