Marc Ingla insisted that if he could go back to July, he would still buy Thierry Henry, but the Barcelona’s new vice-president is increasingly in the minority, as fears mount over the long-term injury prognosis for the former Arsenal striker.
Henry joined Barca for £16.1million on a four-year contract in July, having missed five months of the 2006-07 season with back trouble. A related injury left him unable to face Espanyol penultimate weekend and initial reports said that he would be out of action "indefinitely."
Medical staff at Nou Camp said last week that they had been aware of Henry’s problems when he was signed, sparking renewed criticism of the size of the transfer fee and the length of the contract given to the 30-year-old.
Although that initial prognosis proved pessimistic, club doctors believe the Frenchman will not be fit to play for at least two more weeks and have warned that his "chronic" condition has no cure and tends to deteriorate with age.
In the absence of the injured Samuel Eto’o, Henry has played more often than expected in the early months of his Barcelona career. He has complained of lower back and hip pain and has now been diagnosed as suffering a dehydration of the intervertebral disc L5-S1 in his lower back, causing lumbar and hip pain. The official report noted that his condition dated back "a number of years."
Medical staff at Barca estimate that he may be fit to face Real Madrid on December 22, but with Eto’o finally returning, he is likely to be given until the end of the Christmas break to rest. Eto’o’s participation in the African Cup of Nations means that Barca will need Henry throughout January.
Barca privately fear that Henry will not be able to cope with the demands of regular games for the remainder of his contract. Independent medical experts have insisted that this is a persistent problem likely to dog him until he retires.
Barcelona’s former vice-president, Sandro Rosell, criticised the club recently for giving Henry a four-year deal. "Whoever signed him deserves a clip round the ear," he said. "He should have been given an exhaustive medical, because everyone knows the problems he has had (at Arsenal)." That prompted Barcelona’s medical staff to reveal that they had warned the club about Henry’s injury.
Catalan columnists have been biting in their criticism, describing Henry’s signing as a "huge con" and "massive error." The newspaper, El Mundo Deportivo, recalling that Arsene Wenger had made £30million on the sales of Emmanuel Petit and Marc Overmars to Barcelona, said: "Arsenal must be laughing themselves hoarse."
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