https://www.theguardian.com/football/2019/jan/28/thierry-henry-monaco-ligue-1-sacked
Henry inherited a depleted squad but his negative tactics and immature man-management did not help his case
Appointing
Thierry Henry as manager was always going to be a gamble for Monaco, but there was little to suggest his time in charge would end in such spectacular failure. Henry’s return to his boyhood club was an unmitigated disaster. Henry did oversee the odd decent result – including recent draws with Marseille and Nice in the league and progress to the semi-finals of the Coupe de la Ligue – but ultimately he paid the price for performances on the pitch and his own seeming contradictions.
Henry is 41 and just four years into his retirement – he played alongside Fàbregas for several years at Arsenal – and it appears his lack of maturity has been his undoing. It is hard to square Henry’s seemingly imperious attitude (
witness his admonishment of Benoît Badiashile after the young defender failed to push in his chair at a press conference) and reports that the manager conducted himself more like a senior member of the squad than their manager.
Last Sunday, during Monaco’s 5-1 defeat to Strasbourg, Henry was even caught on camera telling the opposition right-back that his “
grandmother’s a whore,” which seems quite at odds with the culture of respect he seemed to be demanding while chastising his own player.
Monaco followed up their loss in Strasbourg with another disappointing result on Tuesday night, a 3-1 home defeat to second-tier Metz in the Coupe de France. In response to being knocked out of the cup, Henry wanted to demote several players to the reserves, not an easy decision to make given his side’s injury woes, but one he was set on taking nonetheless, citing the need for “hungry” players.
A group of senior players reacted by requesting a summit meeting with the board. The club took the players’ dissatisfaction seriously and were quick to dismiss Henry, even though his hefty severance package of between €10 and €15m is a departure from their previously parsimonious ways.
It is not only Henry’s haughty attitude towards the players on a personal level that has damned him. Reports from the club’s training centre also highlighted a seeming lack of professionalism on his part while taking training, something that seemed to spill over into matchdays as well, as Monaco frequently chopped and changed their tactics and the roles of various players.
Some of Henry’s more surprising decisions – for instance, playing Almamy Touré as a centre-back for the first time in years and Aleksandr Golovin as a striker – can be put down to the lack of depth in his squad, but the team desperately lacked identity under his management. Henry had a vivacious style as a player – and Monaco had played with a similar devil-may-care attitude during their best spell under Jardim – but Henry undermined that approach by playing negative formations with too many central midfielders.
If taking a more cautious route was truly his aim, his tactics often served to weaken his players; Kamil Glik’s lack of pace was often easily exposed in a back three and Nacer Chadli’s form did little to capture the imagination. It was as if Henry did not know his players’ attributes very well. Even with the former
Marseille boss Franck Passi coming in as Henry’s assistant, Monaco too often looked at sea on the pitch. The same players also struggled under Jardim, but the sheer inconsistency of Henry’s approach to management, both on a personal and professional level, did much to discredit his ambitions.
In the end, Henry was his own worst enemy. Hopefully he will leave Monaco having learned a lesson about attitude and preparedness. Before he returns to the game, he should go away and reflect on what has gone wrong and how he can move on from this disappointment.
