It emerged last night that Wenger had studied the physiological statistics and read-outs and reached the conclusion that, just like Patrick Vieira two years ago, Henry was over the hill.

An Arsenal insider told the Mirror: "Arsene was given the statistics, hard and fast figures, about Thierry's performance levels.

"If he'd wanted to keep Henry, he would have remained. But the stats suggested his performance levels were drifting away pretty rapidly."