“I will always remember one thing that Ars? told me when I arrived here,” Henry says. For me that’s the most important thing.”Sometimes his feelings, he believes, are misrepresented as “petulance”. Instead it is just a “respect for the game” that is both innate and also learned.Ars? Wenger, the Arsenal manager, delivered one of the best lessons. Whether it is among the sand dunes or in the Stade de France “People forget where I come from,” he says. “In front of the cameras I have to control myself but I will not change the basics. “If you come with me on holiday and I lose two-against-two against my brother and my dad then I won’t be talking to them for at least an hour,” Henry jokes “I can’t take it That’s just the way I am You have to understand that’s sometimes the way people are A guy’s a guy.”The status of the contest does not matter.

Friends say I’m too hard on myself but that’s my way.”It can be hard on his father and brother, Willy, also. But trying to reach perfection will always keep you on your toes. The unattainable search for “perfection”.”You can never reach perfection, but I am trying to do it because that’s the only way you can progress and get better,” he says “We all know no one is perfect Everyone in the game is missing something. If I do something bad on the pitch I blame me.”There is, indeed, a distinction. Henry is wonderfully polite and thoughtful if also clearly sensitive to both criticism and the needs of others and stresses that his on-field and off-field personalities are very different It all boils down to one thing. You have to have that in you and that’s why I want it in me until I stop.”There is, Henry says, a significant distinction to be made “I am happy,” he insists “Don’t get me wrong about the anger thing I’m a happy man It’s just my way of seeing things. He sees the similarities too in Rooney and, of course, Ronaldinho.”There is no better school than the streets,” he says.

“No disrespect to people involved in my progression but you need that anger factor When I see Rooney I see a player from the streets When I see Ronaldinho I see a player from the streets. Indeed, Henry sees comparisons with the East End of London and has talked to his team-mates Ashley Cole and Sol Campbell – who both come from that area – about the parallels. Later he admitted that, maybe, he “suffocated” his youngest son a little.Henry refers to himself as a “player from the streets”, adding “that’s why you get tough” His neighbourhood was not the roughest But it was far from privileged It was, he says, “a difficult background”. He was disciplined, demanding and was also convinced his son would play for France. That is my way.”Henry’s parents, his father, Antoine and mother Marylese, arrived in France in the 1970s from Guadeloupe They lived in what the French term un quartier difficile Antoine pushed “Titi” hard. I know it might not be everyone’s philosophy but that’s why I’ve reached what I’ve reached and I’m playing the football I’m playing right now.