Melville is in awe of Henry

With the benefit of hindsight, Andy Melville's night in front of the television on Tuesday was perhaps not the best preparation for a game against Arsenal.

It cannot have done much for the Fulham defender's confidence to witness Thierry Henry tear apart Internazionale in the San Siro a few days before he is due to mark him at Highbury.

The French striker's contribution of two goals scored and two created in the 5-1 win brought universal acclaim.

There were more plaudits the next day when it was announced Henry had been nominated for FIFA's World Player of the Year Award, along with Ronaldo and Zinedine Zidane.

Not that Arsenal need pepping up for Sunday's Premiership visit of Fulham. They are already top of the league after enjoying a record start to the season of 13 games unbeaten.

Fortunately for Fulham, Melville has the experience of more than 800 club appearances and 61 caps for Wales to call on.

And the 34-year-old will need every ounce of know-how on Sunday if he is to get the better of Henry.

Melville said: "I watched him play the other night and Inter could not get anywhere near him.

"We are talking about Italian defenders, who are the best in the world. Henry just went past them as if they were not there.

"They were experienced, quality defenders who play against top strikers every week, but Henry is special when he is on the top of his form.

"A few years ago there was a question mark over whether he could finish at the top level but now he is doing it regularly."

Fulham manager Chris Coleman found something else to do when Arsenal were on the television this week and reckons watching the Inter demolition would not have told him anything he did not already know.

Melville is also well-versed in the striker who he rates as the best he has faced in 18 years of professional football. He said: "Among the highlights of my career are games against Brazil, Italy and Germany for Wales. I've come up against some of the best players in the world.

"Dennis Bergkamp is up there and has scored a few goals against me at Fulham and international level with Holland. Jurgen Klinsmann is another who was exceptional, but the list is endless.

"Playing against Henry has probably been the most difficult. His pace is tremendous and he is very creative. He drops off and is a very clever player. If he sees spaces he just slots into them and that makes it difficult for defenders to pick him up.

"It also allows him to get at you with his pace and no defender likes a striker doing that. They are lying if they say they do.

"A couple of seasons ago he scored two goals against us in our 4-1 defeat at Highbury. We were split open a few times in that game. But Arsenal have so many quality players you cannot have a plan just for Henry.

"They have Robert Pires and Freddie Ljungberg and both of them can get in behind the back four so you cannot just concentrate on one of them.

"We will just have to try to get as close to Henry as possible before he gets into his stride and try and stop him. It will be a team thing and whoever is closest will have to get to him as soon as they can and try to get in his face.

"But I think the pressure is off us. Everybody is expecting them to turn us over so we'll just work hard and try to express ourselves."

If Melville wants to turn on his video ahead of Sunday he might be better advised reviewing Fulham's 3-1 win at Manchester United last month or Monday's 2-0 victory against Portsmouth.

The deserved Old Trafford result and other impressive away performances this season should give the team confidence and Louis Saha's goals this week show they have their own French goalscoring threat.

Further encouragement for Fulham is that Alain Goma has returned to training after a knee operation and is available, while Saha and Steed Malbranque have overcome minor niggles.

Moritz Volz, who is on loan at Fulham from Arsenal and is the subject of transfer talks between the clubs, is free to play but Luis Boa Morte will not face his former club because of suspension.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in