Arsenal players kick Henry in training
Arsenal striker Thierry Henry has revealed how his team-mates adopted a “cruel to be kind” approach to acclimatising him to English football – by kicking him in training.
Henry took several months to get used to the Premiership when he arrived from Juventus in August 1999 before completing the transition into a world-class striker.
He told the latest issue of GQ magazine: “I have had to work on my strength since coming to England. During training, Martin Keown would always keep hitting me – all the way to the dressing-rooms.
“There were some fantastic battles between us during training. I used to get knocked aside at the start but this has helped me and now it is a different story.
“The other players used to be more vicious with me. That was because they wanted to instill the English way of playing into me. It was their way of being cruel to be kind.”
