Arsenal and the £16m season saving sale

You won't find me ever attacking Thierry Henry's Arsenal legacy on this blog. You won't find me slagging off the man Arsenal fans referred affectionately to as TH14. But his sale this past summer was one of the biggest catalysts to Arsenal's strong start this season and it's something I felt would happen all along.

On the heels of today's Champions League group stage opener against Sevilla, I felt it was as good a time as ever to point out the renewed confidence that has come from Arsenal's £16m sale of Henry to Barcelona.

Let's go back to late June when the move occurred and the immediate writing off of Arsenal that transfixed pundits everywhere.

Headlines like "Arsenal reeling as £16m Henry joins Barcelona" were found everyone in the media. Tottenham was picked to finish fourth as so-called "experts" were picking the Gunners to finish anywhere from fifth to seventh in the league.

Oh how wrong they seem to have been.

Thierry Henry was a legend at Arsenal. Arguably the best player in the world for three or four seasons, it was a treat for Gunners fans to watch Titi perform some of the best moves in football and score exquisite goals time and time again.

But it was time for the relationship between the club and the player to be severed and kudos to Arsene Wenger for making it happen.

Fast-forward to now and you'll see the changes evident in North London. Cesc Fabregas has taken over the role as best player on the team and you'd be hard pressed to convince me that anyone in the Premier League is having a better season than young Cesc. In fact, I don't think you could.

Scoring goals and setting up others with his picture perfect passing, Cesc has become the Premier League's most dangerous midfielder and the players around him are benefiting.

No longer centered on getting TH14 the ball, Arsenal's free-form interpretation of the beautiful game (nobody plays prettier in England, if not the world) has flourished thus far this season.

Emmanuel Adebayor and Robin van Persie have become two of the most capable strikers in the league and I'd venture to put RvP as one of the best players in the world right now.

However, the biggest impact of Henry's departure can be seen on every other player on Arsenal's side. Gone are the facial reminders from Henry that the youngsters in the club weren't up to his form when ball after ball failed to reach him perfectly. Gone therefore are the tense nerves of those same youngsters who strived to please their best player in everything they did. Instead the goals can seemingly come from anywhere on the pitch, a luxury that most coaches in the Premier League would love to have.

The club is back playing with as much confidence as ever and I think it is best manifested in the psyche of Arsenal fans around the world. There is a return of the belief that Arsenal will score even when they are down and that is something that has been missing the past two seasons.

After falling behind Fulham in the opener, Arsenal scored twice to get the win. Against Manchester City, a late goal gave the Gunners three points when last season they would have earned one for the draw or even worse, lost on a fluke goal. And the biggest example of the return of Arsenal came at White Hart Lane on Saturday.

Down 1-0 to hated rivals Tottenham, there was never a moment of concern in my mind that Arsenal wouldn't come back, and they proved it with a stunning comeback that punctuated their return to the top of the table with a 3-1 victory.

There is a long way to go, and even Arsene Wenger will admit that plenty could still play out in Arsenal's first post-Henry season

I knew I took a gamble by losing Thierry - but you cannot keep (players like Emmanuel) Adebayor (out). At his age you have to let him play. I am not surprised that we have started well - but they have confirmed my hopes. They have strengthened my belief that this team can do well, but you have to show it on the pitch.

And so far they have and it appears that Henry's sale to Barcelona was the best thing that could have happened to Arsenal and that is something very few people agreed with me about back in the heat of the summer.