Thierry Henry vs Kyle Walker: Who would come out on top?

Jack Grealish rarely disappoints when positioned in front of a microphone.

The affable winger cut through the guffaws in the wake of Manchester City's Champions League triumph against Inter to pose an intriguing hypothetical to his interviewer Thierry Henry. Would the former Arsenal and Barcelona forward have been able to "take on" City's jet-heeled Kyle Walker in his prime?

"All day!" Henry emphatically answered.

While the Frenchman jovially shook Walker's hand, the defender's shaking head suggests he wasn't entirely in agreement. Is Henry's overwhelming confidence misplaced?

Did Thierry Henry and Kyle Walker ever play against each other?

Walker, 13 years Henry’s junior, didn’t make his senior debut until the 2008/09 campaign. By that point, Henry had already moved on from English football and was busy winning the treble with Barcelona.

However, Mr Va va voom himself returned to Arsenal for a brief loan spell at the start of 2012. Walker had joined north London rivals Tottenham six months earlier and was already a fixture of the backline.

Henry only made seven fleeting appearances for the Gunners, scoring twice - including a memorable winner against Leeds United in the FA Cup - before ending his ill-advised renaissance with a 4-0 defeat against AC Milan in the Champions League. Just 11 days after Henry’s final appearance for Arsenal, the Gunners hosted Walker’s Tottenham at the Emirates.

Had Henry stuck around for another fortnight, the hypothetical duel between this duo could have been a reality.

Would Thierry Henry have been able to get past Kyle Walker in his prime?

For all of Henry's bravado in Istanbul, he has been reverential in his praise of Walker this season. After nullifying Real Madrid's Vinicius Junior in the Champions League semi-final, Henry gushed: "Walker is a beast.

"Whenever you have to run with him, you might as well stop running. At one point, he was way behind Vinicius, he just caught him, took the ball and looked at him and said: 'Bye'. When it comes to that, he is too good. He put [Kylian Mbappe] in his pocket in the quarter-final at the World Cup. He put a lot of players that are actually outstanding in his pocket. It is not easy to beat him."

Walker has the benefit of operating in an era almost two decades after Henry's peak, with all of the advances that the passage of time brings.

"Football always progresses," Henry's Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger once opined. "The attack creates a new problem, the defence responds. What has happened in the last ten years is that the strikers have become quicker and quicker. What's happened? The defence have responded by creating quicker and quicker defenders."

However, Henry could certainly shift in his pomp. Walker has been clocked at a top speed of 37.8 km/h (23.5 mph) in the Premier League during his career - the fastest of any defender on record. Yet, Henry reportedly hit full stride at 39.2 km/h (24.4 mph) in 1998.

It should be stressed that these speed figures only offer a broad view of a player's swiftness and do not take into consideration the fact that Henry would be, theoretically, slowed down by the ball when running directly at Walker.

Whatever velocity Henry reached, it proved too much for practically all of his opponents. Against every Premier League club he faced from the off, Henry scored. Sir Alex Ferguson devised specific tactics to combat Henry's skillset, instructing right-back Gary Neville to remain in his defensive position throughout the contest. Henry still scored eight goals - and created another four - in 14 top-flight matches against Manchester United.

Jose Mourinho accused Henry of only finding the net in "small games" during his first season at Chelsea. The Blues won the league while conceding a record-low 15 goals. Yet, Henry scored twice on their visit to Highbury in December of that season - no other player in the division registered a brace against Chelsea during the 2004/05 campaign.

Walker has proven a match for the modern day's best players but Henry never met an opponent he couldn't get past. In all likelihood, both Premier League greats would have enjoyed some success over the course of a 90 minute contest. Although, as Henry conceded after his burst of self-confidence: "We'll never know." What a shame.

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