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The Newcastle United revolution is in full flow: now, they might just have the new Thierry Henry.
Yeah, you read that right. It’s just possible that the heir to that classy, va va voom-dripping Frenchman is already on Tyneside – and all Eddie Howe needs to unlock him is a little help from, well, the club who introduced the real Thierry Henry to English fans.
Haven’t got a clue what we’re talking about? Let’s explain…
Newcastle United’s ‘new Thierry Henry’ could be Alexander Isak
Alexander Isak was signed as a centre-forward to give competition to Callum Wilson. The super Swede has been excellent centrally, too, with Eddie Howe refusing to use a front two, as he so often did at Bournemouth, opting for one striker or the other.
And yet in the final weeks of the season, that all changed… sort of. Newcastle lined up with Isak out on the left and the comparisons to a certain World Cup-winning Frenchman were obvious. The swagger on the ball, the ability to carry it past full-backs as if they were training cones – not to mention the height and the build of the man.
Plenty of players in recent seasons have earned similar compliments – Kylian Mbappe, of course, along with Randal Kolo Muani, for starters. But there’s something about the way that Isak cuts in from that lefthand side that could be extremely dangerous if Newcastle explore it further…
Now Arsenal can help complete the jigsaw, by selling Newcastle Kieran Tierney
Cue Arsenal helping out. Kieran Tierney currently doesn’t fit into Mikel Arteta’s system, with the Basque boss operating with inverted full-backs. The Scot was best for the Gunners when providing the overlap past Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, later Emile Smith Rowe, who liked drifting inside – now, Arteta favours Martinelli as a touchline winger.
But with Tierney constantly linked with Newcastle, this could unlock a new dimension for Isak. Dan Burn certainly can overlap but Tierney is a machine in attack, as well as solid defensively. No longer will he have to hold the width and beat full-backs: he can instead hang in the halfspaces and find those gaps between full-back and centre-back. It’s often referred to as ‘the Thierry Henry goal’: finding yourself in space on the lefthand side, leaning back and burying it with your right foot.
There’s a poetry in the Gunners making another player look like their record scorer – but then Arsenal were, at one stage, linked with Isak themselves. It’s funny how things turn out.
