By Myles Palmer

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THIERRY HENRY is carrying an achilles strain.

He can't run as fast or as much.

So the team needs people making fast and varied runs off him, as he adapts to a pass-switching playmaker role, rather than doing a lot of the sprinting and most the shooting.

Henry can still shoot and score, but it doesn't look as if he can explode into a 50-yard slalom.

He can't switch to turbo anymore.

If he did that he might damage his achilles and miss the Real Madrid games.

So it's down to other players to make diagonal runs into scoring positions.

Henry needs players making runs from the right, runs from the left, runs from behind him on both sides.

That will give him time to pass - and room to shoot.

BOXING DAY had some big handballs that went unseen and unpunished.

Baros handled and scored the first goal against Everton and then got a hat-trick as Aston Villa won 4-0.

John Terry produced a brave last-ditch goalkeeping save to block a Boa Morte shot with his arm as he threw himself at the shooter, but Graham Poll did not give a penalty.

I was at that game.

Chelsea beat Fulham 3-2.

Good fun and quite illuminating.

ARSENAL won 1-0 at Charlton.

CYGAN jumped and pushed the Charlton player and elbowed the ball away, a clear penalty - not given.

KOLO TOURE has a good game at centreback : agile, reliable, covering huge areas.

His distribution was very good.

His performance seemed to say : keep me here, I'm happy here, I'm not a right back.

In his Sky commentary Martin Tyler emphasised and re-emphasised the key point that Tony Adams and I have been making for three years : you can't play both Freddie and Pires in away games.

Especially now Vieira has gone.

It was risky with Vieira and it's suicide now.

Hleb has replaced Pires.

He is tenacious and creative and has a 10-yard spurt to leave the man he has beaten.

But Hleb doesn't score goals.

The return of Reyes has added to the team.

Reyes works back brilliantly and he and Hleb helped to make things much easier for Cygan at left back.

Hreidarsson is a big rough Viking who rammed his knee into Gilberto's back and Danny Murphy threw the ball down and was sent off for dissent. Two yellows.

So Arsenal just played keep-ball against ten men after that.

CURBISHLEY had a major re-shuffle of his team but the result was Charlton's eighth defeat in their last nine games.

Arsenal looked brighter, but precarious.

They get narrow wins against poor sides.

It is December 27th and they still have not beaten a good side this season and do not look capable of beating Man United at Highbury on Tuesday January 3rd.

Who wants to start 2006 by losing 4-2 to Man United, as they did on February 1st ?

Still, Lehmann did not play in that game. He will make a difference.

There was nothing in the Chelsea game as brilliant as the vintage Arsenal move in the 25th minute.

Reyes started the move and made the chance.

Reyes won the ball from Luke Young in the left back position and found Cygan : back to Reyes, quick to Henry, who laid it off to Reyes, who was still racing down the touchline, and he released Freddie onside into acres of space, and Freddie dawdled into the box and keeper Myhre stood up well in the one-on-one and Freddie waited too long and hit the keeper's leg.

Good goalkeeping, it has to be said.

If Freddie had scored it would have been goal of the month and Arsenal might have won 4-0.

THE BOTTOM LINE is that Arsenal need more goalscorers.

Ashley Cole has to come back and score a couple in February-March.

Hleb needs to break his duck soon.

Van Persie may be used as a super-sub in some games.

He is talented finisher who gives the ball a good whack.

Reyes is combative and can score various types of goals.

Scruffy goals, little goals, stabbed in from rebounds, as at Charlton, are needed.

Freddie played in Thierry on the right and his shot was blocked by Sorondo and he got the rebound and shot again from a narrow angle and hit the keeper's foot and the ball broke across the goalmouth for Reyes to knock in from five yards.

It was Arsenal's first premiership goal for a month.

Reyes has been rubbish for five months.

He must improve.

But Reyes is brave, gets in where it hurts.

He can head the ball. And he can hit it very hard.

So I think Reyes will score from outside the box in the coming weeks.

BUT WITHOUT HELP from Henry, Jose Antonio Reyes will fail and move back to Spain.

You will have noticed that Henry talks up van Persie in the press.

He also talks up Quincy, a circus act who won't make it.

But he never talks up Reyes.

Sometimes his body language towards Reyes, and Cygan, is a disgrace.

That is why Henry should not be captain.

Personally, I do NOT believe that AW gave Henry the armband to keep him at the club.

Because I did not think in July that Henry would ask for a move to Spain.

And I STILL don't think he will go.

December 27th 2005.

STOP PRESS : But wait ! Hold the back page !

Maybe TH14 has had a change of attitude.

Brodkin writes this in the Guardian :

Henry picked out Jose Antonio Reyes for praise.

"Jose deserved the goal because he worked a lot," he said. "Not only him but I want to talk about him specially because we need him to do this kind of performance for us. This was magnificent."

BLIMEY ! Maybe a new year has started already.

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