“May this actually be the start of the tip of Arsenal’s Premier League desires?”
April 9, 2004.
Sami Hyypia has simply pounced on some surprisingly lax defending from Arsenal’s backline to provide Liverpool a 1-0 lead at Highbury Stadium.
Catastrophe.
Arsenal had gone into the conflict with Gerard Houllier’s Liverpool realizing they had been simply eight video games away from Premier League immortality. Having gone 30 matches unbeaten all through the course of the 2003/04 season to this point, eight extra with out defeat would see them topped fashionable English soccer’s first-ever ‘Invincibles’, in addition to Premier League champions for a 3rd time underneath legendary supervisor Arsene Wenger.
Wanting via the calendar, out of all of the remaining eight video games, the one towards Liverpool had appeared like the obvious potential banana pores and skin for the Gunners. The Reds got here into the sport in high quality type, having gained 4 of their final 5 and having not conceded a objective since mid-March. That type was thanks largely to their celebrity gamers Steven Gerrard and Michael Owen – each of whom had been able to profitable a recreation on the drop of a hat.
It was explicitly clear that any minuscule drop in efficiency ranges towards Liverpool may deliver Arsenal’s quest to complete the season unbeaten to an abrupt finish.
Inside 5 minutes, a momentary lapse in focus had threatened to do precisely that.
And had Thierry Henry not been on the pitch, it very effectively may have.
Fortunately for Arsenal, he was, and 25 minutes later he introduced his aspect again on stage phrases. The mercurial ahead darted in behind the backline in a means solely he may, earlier than bringing a chipped via ball from Robert Pires underneath his management in a means solely he may, after which side-footing throughout objective and proper into the side-netting in a means solely he may.
1-1.
Having given his aspect a platform to go and win the sport, one other defensive lapse would present Liverpool the lead once more on the stroke of half-time.
Liverpool’s aforementioned superstars Gerrard and Owen would mixed to capitalise on the seeming sleepiness of Arsenal’s backline, with the previous feeding the ball via to the latter to make it 2-1.
Catastrophe. Once more.
The Gunners got here out of the traps with renewed vigour at the beginning of the second half, nonetheless. Inside a couple of minutes of the whistle, a transfer began by Henry would culminate in Pires levelling the scores.
60 seconds later, Henry would then make it 3-2 in fairly exceptional style.
After the ahead latched onto the ball with 40 yards and 11 Liverpool gamers between him and the objective, the 38,119 followers in attendance instantly stood up in anticipation – totally anticipating their star man to miraculously discover a technique to make the online bulge.
And positive sufficient, he did.
Henry would rapidly race previous Dietmar Hamann earlier than squaring as much as Jamie Carragher and Igor Biscan on the sting of the field. A deft side-step to the left would ship the pair crashing into each other helplessly and permit Henry to race into the left aspect of the field. In typical Henry style, he’d then open up his physique and curl the ball fantastically into the underside nook of the online.
3-2.
Sport over.
Arsenal’s celebrity would go on to cap off a exceptional efficiency with a 3rd objective late within the recreation – one of many 30 he scored in the course of the 2003/04 season to encourage his workforce to an unbeaten Premier League title-winning season.
Maybe what makes this efficiency from Henry so particular is how frequent such a exhibiting was for him all through his eight years at Arsenal.
This hat-trick wasn’t epiphanic like Andriy Arshavin’s 4 objectives at Anfield had been, or Maynor Figueroa scoring from the half-way line towards Stoke Metropolis, or Sebastian Coates netting an overhead kick towards QPR (keep in mind that?); this hat-trick was Henry.
Rising up watching ITV’s “The Premiership” it appeared like each single Saturday night time you’d see Henry do one thing you beforehand did not actually imagine was even doable. On this specific week in April, that ‘one thing’ was this hat-trick.
Just a few weeks later, that ‘one thing’ was 4 objectives towards Newcastle United.
Just a few weeks after that, that ‘one thing’ was lifting the Premier League title because the chief of a workforce who’d gone unbeaten for a full 38-game season.
Henry was constantly exceptional, and that is what makes him the greatest player to ever grace the Premier League.
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