Spectacular Henry happy to score the ugly goals

Arsenal's supreme striker talks to Alex Hayes about his career change and the skills of Owen and Anelka

Were he the type of player who worries about such matters, Thierry Henry would be entitled to wonder why he is never linked with big-money moves abroad. Thankfully for Arsenal, though, this is a Frenchman who is not interested in transfer gossip. "Maybe no one comes in for me because I'm always declaring my love for this club," he jokes.

Coming from most players, those comments would almost certainly be thrown in the corny bin. With Henry, however, they somehow ring true. His manager and father-figure insists his striker has always kept his head down and his feet on the ground. "Thierry has not changed since I first met him almost 10 years ago," Arsène Wenger says. "He is a very intelligent boy who is capable of analysing what has happened to him. That is why he is where he is today."

Henry's rapid progress is also due to the fact that he is never afraid to learn. When he first joined Arsenal just over two years ago, people knew him as a winger. Wenger, though, had other ideas. Having overseen Henry's early development at Monaco, he was keen to play his young protégé down the centre. It took a lot of persuading and some getting used to, but the move has been a resounding success. "At the time I signed here, I felt I was a wide man," Henry explains. "I had won the French championship and the World Cup in that position, so I found it difficult to imagine myself playing as a striker. But the coach said the move could give my career a whole new dimension."

Wenger, who rates his player as one of the best two or three strikers in the world, was right. Henry has finished as the Gunners' top scorer in the past two seasons and is on course to do so again this year. "Before the swap," Henry says, "I wasn't having an impact on any of the matches, so I am obviously delighted to look back now on the amazing Arsenal career I've had."

Despite his transformation on the pitch, Henry insists he has not changed off it. "One of my traits is that I don't pay any attention to the hype that accompanies me," the 24 year-old says. "It's so difficult to know who to trust, so I deliberately surround myself with people who will force me to remain the same. I want those around me now to be the ones who were by my side when I was nobody, not the hangers-on who want to profit from my success. You know what the football world is like: you can easily get carried away, particularly when you are young with a lot of money. That's why I am careful to stay grounded. My faults and qualities today are the ones I had when I was a kid – I will always be the same."

Not that Henry wants to be known as a goodie-two-shoes. "It's all very well being nice and polite," says the striker, who showed his rougher side when he was charged with misconduct by the Football Association for berating the referee at the end of a home defeat by Newcastle last month, "but if you don't perform on the pitch then you're not much good to the side. People don't mind you being a little rowdy so long as you're bringing something different to the team."

One aspect which Henry has sought to alter is his erratic close-range finishing. Last May's FA Cup Final defeat at the hands of today's visitors was the perfect example of his inability to score scrappy goals. He missed two clear-cut chances at the Millennium Stadium before Michael Owen snatched victory for Liverpool with two goals in the last five minutes. "In a match like that, the key is to take any opportunity that comes your way," he says. "If you don't kill the game when you get the chance, it can come back to haunt you, and that's exactly what happened to us. But I'm improving. If you look at my stats this season, I think I've only failed to score once when I've been in a one-on-one situation with a goalkeeper.

"People are never happy. When a player scores lots of tap-ins, critics say he should score more spectacular goals. And when he produces the great strikes, he is told he should get the easy ones. I don't care whether I score a beautiful goal or not. The only important thing is for the back of the net to bulge."

It has done so on no fewer than 24 occasions this season, and Henry would love nothing more than to reach the quarter-century mark when playing against his old foe, Owen, and his old friend, Nicolas Anelka. "Michael is an amazing goalscorer," Henry says. "Along with David Trézéguet [the France and Juventus striker], he is probably the only pure centre-forward left in Europe. Instead of making runs down the channels or collecting the ball from deep, he will sit in the box and pounce on any scraps. It may not always be pretty, but it is just as effective, and I'd love to play with a striker like that.

"As for Nico [Anelka], he is like a brother. Contrary to what everybody has been saying, he is really happy to be back in English football. He feels alive again and can't wait to kickstart his career. He's timid and that often gets misinterpreted. But he's a wonderful guy, who really makes us laugh when we meet up with the national team. People simply don't know him."

Nor, it would seem, do many know the real Henry. "There is so much rubbish written about me," he says. "It drives me mad. On the day Arsène signed his new contract, there was an 'exclusive' interview in a paper that said I'd leave if he did not stay. What a load of crap. All I'm interested in is progressing all the time. The key is that I don't go backwards. The day that happens, or the day I don't feel the same love and passion for this club, I will quit. I can promise Arsenal fans that much."