Thierry Henry helps BlueCo solve Chelsea problem as Arsenal legend makes Mikel Arteta point
Thierry Henry believes the Chelsea owners need to give their managers more time to implement their ideas.
Thierry Henry has given the Chelsea owners some advice(Image: Photo by Dustin Satloff/Getty Images)
Thierry Henry has urged BlueCo to give the next Chelsea boss more time. The west London outfit are back in the market for a new head coach after sacking Liam Rosenior, who lasted just 104 days in the dugout at Stamford Bridge.
Excluding interims, the 41-year-old was the fifth gaffer to part ways with Chelsea since Clearlake Capital, led by Behdad Eghbali, and Todd Boehly took the reins in May 2022, and the 10th to manage the club in the last 10 years.
football.london understands that the owners are willing to take the necessary time before appointing the next head coach, with the ownership group looking for someone who can help develop the young squad. So far, the Blues have identified Andoni Iraola, Marco Silva, and Xabi Alonso as potential replacements for Rosenior.
Regardless of who Chelsea bring in, Henry believes they should follow the example of Arsenal, Liverpool, and Manchester City, who backed Mikel Arteta, Jurgen Klopp, and Pep Guardiola, respectively, during difficult periods at the start of their tenures.
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Speaking to Betway, the Gunners legend said: “I’m not in the building to know what’s happening, but Chelsea used to change managers around every one-and-a-half to every two years, and they were successful when doing that.
“During my time, they were starting to be more successful, and after my time, they basically won everything. They changed managers a lot, but they did give them a tiny bit more time.
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“Now they’re making the changes quicker. I’ve lost count of how many managers in the last year. I know you need results now, and I know it looks like Chelsea are at the mercy of Aston Villa winning the Europa League to get into the Champions League via the sixth spot, so people are panicking.
“But at some point, if you don’t give a manager time – and I’m not talking specifically about Liam Rosenior because I don’t know what they were asking him to do – then you start to wonder what we are witnessing.
“Patience is a virtue which we tend to forget. If you look at some of the best coaches now, they struggled at the beginning. People will tell you now that Mikel Arteta is a competitive coach, well-drilled, tactically sound.
“Look at his first two seasons at Arsenal – he arrived with a team that wasn’t his, still managed to win the FA Cup in the first six months, and then after finishing eighth, people wanted his head. You keep him, and now he’s competitive.
“He went to get the players he wanted, got the money that he wanted, he got the time that he wanted, so now he’s competing. The first two years of Jurgen Klopp at Liverpool, you could see that something was maybe going to happen, but it wasn’t happening at the time.
“Those managers had time. Sometimes I understand that teams have goals which they feel they aren’t going to achieve at that particular moment, but my grandmother used to say, “Time often brings what the moment refuses.”
Henry continued: “Are you willing to miss out on something along the way to be better later on? Will you be patient enough to miss one or two Champions League years, and then maybe win it?
“Time is important, and sometimes people just don’t want to wait. You can only judge someone after giving them a good amount of time to be able to express themselves.
“Whoever the next manager is going to be, that guy needs time. Look how long it took the great Pep Guardiola to put Manchester City together this season.
“He had to make (Rayan) Cherki understand what was happening – that took seven months. He had to go and get (Marc) Guehi and (Antoine) Semenyo, so he had to wait six months. He had to make Nico O’Reilly understand how to play at left back, going inside and outside.
“Now his team are on the verge of maybe winning a domestic treble, but it took him up to January or February to get a competitive team, and still he had to go and get two guys that were not in the building at the beginning of the season.
“That’s the great Pep Guardiola, and everyone knows what I think of him. Let’s keep it real, it’s not easy…”
