Let's make a few things clear. Despite being not worth the paper it's printed on, a verbal agreement of this sort is illegal. It would constitute the kind of tapping-up which has got many people into trouble recently, most famously Chelsea (and our own Ashley Cole) and Roma. Anyone who believes that Henry would entertain such shenanigans for even a moment is a complete fool.

Even if it weren't likely to get him in trouble, Henry would also be a fool to entertain such notions. If he were to leave Arsenal then he'd wait till the time and look at his options. That would be the intelligent thing to do and he's an intelligent man. The whole point of not signing a new contract yet is surely to avoid restricting his options. He's no reason to restrict them by simultaneously making underhand illegal agreements, and he has nothing to gain by doing so.

Of course, if he were to leave Arsenal then Barcelona would make a lot of sense. He's tried Italy already, and Spanish football would probably suit him better. There are only 2 clubs in Spain even vaguely worthy of his talents (or able to afford him), and of the 2, Barcelona makes more sense for several reasons that we needn't go into. So the Barca blog in question is making a pretty safe gamble. Chances are that Henry will stay at Arsenal (I still think that's by far the most likely outcome). If he leaves and goes to Barca then they can crow about their 'scoop'. If he leaves and goes elsewhere they can either quietly acknowledge that their source was wrong, or claim that Henry had reneged on the verbal agreement. Either way, they've got a lot of hits and publicity out of it (no links from Arseweb, though, sorry but if you're curious you'll have to go find it yourself).

Barca fans are always proud to point out that the club is owned by the fans, and rightly so. But in this instance it works against them, it lessens the respect which the club in other ways earns from supporters around the world. Spanish football clubs are renowned for trying to make transfers happen through their sycophantic press, and in my opinion the down side of Barca's supporter-owned status is that when nonsense like this comes out on a fan site, it reflects badly on the club as a whole.

Unusually, I am actually in the position of having genuine inside info. I can tell you that it is a FACT that Henry has said, to someone that I can absolutely guarantee he would not bullshit to about this, that he's not even going to think about his future until the end of the season at the earliest, that he's not going to be distracted from the footballing task at hand.

Sure, it's no different to what he's said publicly, and to be honest I have enough faith in his integrity that I don't feel that the knowledge he's said it privately as well adds anything significant. But I know that some of you will, so there it is.

The only undisputable FACT that comes out of all this is that Barca fans would like to acquire Thierry Henry for their club. But any fan of any club in the world that claims not to want to acquire Thierry Henry is an idiot or a liar or both. When you've got the best player on the planet, you just have to endure this kind of stuff sometimes. Here's hoping (and anticipating) that we're going to have to endure it for years to come. Been there, done that (and Madrid still didn't get their man). Es una cruz pequeña....