Henry aims to be remembered

For all the plaudits which have been lavished upon the Arsenal ace, Henry is solely concerned with being revered by the fans for providing them with excitement.

The French livewire admits when he hangs up his jet-heeled boots, he will feel he has enjoyed a successful career if he is looked back on with affection.

"My only ambition is for people to think about me when I'm retired and remember me as somebody who excited them," revealed Henry.

"If I achieve that, then I think I will have done something to make people proud and myself proud.

"That is what matters more than anything."

Henry also revealed his only footballing idol as a youngster was Dutch legend Marco van Basten and the Gunners maestro hailed the former Milan striker's arrogance.

He added to The People: "When I was a kid, the only man that mattered to me was Marco van Basten.

"We can talk all day about what made him special but for me it was the arrogance he had in his game.

"For many, arrogance sounds like a bad word but for me, it's the only way to describe what van Basten had. There were times when he had the ball that he knew in his heart nobody could take it off him or stop him from doing exactly what he wanted to do.

"It's easy to use the verb 'to play' but I think that is what van Basten did. He didn't work when he was on the pitch, he played.

"It was like everybody else was doing his job but he was still playing in the garden with his friends.

"He made things look too easy when anybody who has kicked a ball knows that what he did was the most difficult thing in the world."