Player Review
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Thierry Henry is one of my favorite players, so of course I was compelled to complete the SBC despite it being horribly overpriced. I replaced prime Shevchenko with him and it was obviously a huge upgrade but he never felt like a true number 9. I tried everything I could and nothing would work the way I envisioned it working. He was still very good at striker, but not that elite player I knew him to be in real life. He refused to make good runs and lacked the killer instinct that a great striker has. It wasn't until recently that I figured out what the issue was; EA screwed up (big surprise) and gave him medium attacking work rate. To experiment, I moved him down to CAM and moved Eusebio up to striker - the change was immediately noticeable. Since then, Eusebio has become unstoppable and Henry has become my best playmaker. He was an underrated passer in real life, but his lethal striking abilities heavily outweighed that.
In conclusion, don't buy this card or complete the SBC expecting the same Henry you witnessed playing because you won't get him. This Henry card is good as a striker, but great as an attacking mid. I would suggest playing him as a central CAM and only playing him at striker in a two-striker formation where his partner has high attacking work rates. As a striker use marksman and as a CAM use maestro. He performs best with those two chem styles.
- Rapid pace, but not game-breaking like other players
- Great shooting and surprisingly scores a lot of goals off the post
- Brilliant passing
- Near-perfect dribbling, only marred by his balance at times
- Good enough at defending when needed
- High stamina and decent strength
- Good hold-up play for the most part
- Rarely seems to be in the spots I need him to be in and 80% of the time doesn't make good runs
- Low balance means he will occasionally get shoved off the ball at inopportune times
- Horrible jumping even with marksman or hawk; he rarely wins headers and quite a few of them are inaccurate
- Overpriced (but worth it if you're a fan of Thierry Henry)