The Frenchman turned down AVFC to come back to his last club – but things are not working out exactly. It has been almost a month since Thierry Henry was the overwhelming favorite of the bookmakers to become the successor of Steve Bruce at Aston Villa. The Frenchman was as short as 1/8 with a lot of outlets after Villa showed out Henry, looking at the coaching staff with the Belgian national team.

The former Arsenal striker held positive talks with Claret and Blue Board, many of whom thought it was all that Henry took his toes. In the end, Henry rejected the opportunity to become the new boss of Ville and decided to cut his lead away from the United Kingdom – unlike his fellow Premier League legends Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard who were with him in his last club Monaco. Of course, Villa turned to Dean Smith, and the former Brentford boss has experienced mixed fortunes in his first four matches. Again, there has been no “mixed” about the start of Henry.

Ligue 1 Club, recognized by many around the continent to develop young players and sell them for millions – Bernado Silva, Benjamin Mendy, Thomas Lemar, Kylian Mbappe, Fabinho, Tiemoue Bakayoko are among them – have really fought for this term. It was by no means an easy show Henry walked into; The club was put to the bottom three and winless in seven league games when he arrived. Leonardo Jardim, credited with helping Monaco win the French title in 2017 and led the team in Champions League semifinals in the same year, separated from the company after four years in charge having seen his team taken away player sales.

The Henry group was inheriting was nowhere like the team that had been successful 18 months earlier. It had remarkable players in the form of Radamel Falcao and Nacer Chadli, Stevan Jovetic, Youri Tielemans, Djibril Sidibe and Kamil Glik.