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Martin Keown says he played with someone at Arsenal who ‘never got any recognition’ for how good he was

Charles Jones

Thu 1 May 2025 8:55, UK

Arsenal have had their fair share of underrated players over the years.

Indeed, there are a few Arsenal players over the years who never really got the credit they deserved.

Gilberto Silva was perennially underrated during his time at Arsenal. Olivier Giroud was incredibly underrated when he was with the Gunners, while Patrick Vieira believes Declan Rice is underrated at the moment.

Speaking to Mail Sport, Martin Keown has now claimed that another of his Arsenal teammates was underrated to some degree.

Indeed, according to Keown, Thierry Henry was the very best player on the planet at one point, but he believes the Frenchman never got the recognition he deserved for just how good he was.

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Thierry Henry was underrated

Keown shared his verdict on his time at Arsenal and made an interesting point about Thierry Henry.

The pundit says that Henry proved he was the best player in the world back in 2006, but, the former defender believes he never got the credit he deserved for those performances.

“if anything the 2002 Arsenal team was the best I played in, an 11 of that group morphs into one group. Vieira was in that all the way through, and so was Henry. The last time we were in this stadium (Bernabeu), Henry proved he was the best player on the planet but he never got any recognition for it,” Keown said.

Thierry Henry’s Ballon d’Or rankings

Keown says that Henry never got the credit he deserved as the best player in the world, and he’s not too far wrong.

Indeed, while Henry is considered an all-time great of the game, the Arsenal legend never actually got his hands on the Ballon d’Or.

As Keown says, Henry never got the recognition he deserved, as shown by his Ballon d’Or rankings.

Henry finished second in the Ballon d’Or vote in 2003, and perhaps that was the biggest injustice of the bunch, particularly when you compare him to Pavel Nedved that year.

Nedved himself admitted that Henry perhaps should’ve won this award that year, via .

“For me, Thierry Henry is the best forward in the world now. I am very happy. I did not think I would beat Thierry Henry, Paolo Maldini or Zinedine Zidane, and if I had voted, I would have voted for Thierry and for the other players on the podium,” Nedved said.

To say a player like Henry is underrated does sound bizarre, but, in a lot of ways, Keown is right here.