"I'm obsessed by the idea of making my mark on history," the Frenchman said in an interview published on Sunday.

Henry scored twice as Premier League leaders Arsenal crushed Charlton 4-0 at Highbury on Saturday to extend their unbeaten league run to 48 matches.

For his first goal, he took a pass from Jose Antonio Reyes with his back to goal close to the near post and with defender Jonathan Fortune breathing down his neck.

Henry shocked Charlton, thrilled the Highbury faithful and astonished the neutral observer by back-heeling the ball between Fortune's legs and past goalkeeper Dean Kiely into the net.

"Some players, you know when they have the ball that something is going to happen," Henry, top Premier League scorer with 30 goals last season, said of himself in the interview with the Observer Sport Monthly.

"Now I know that whenever I feel that the time has come for me to make a difference in our games, I can and I will," he added by way of explanation of the self-awareness he has developed.

Those might read like the statements of an individualist yet the 27-year-old is very much a team player who delights in the quality of Arsenal's football and creates almost as many goals for team mates as he scores himself.

Arnold Catalano, the scout who discovered the teenaged Henry for Monaco in 1990, was quoted as saying: "The ball is alive when Arsenal are playing and you can see Thierry takes a lot of pleasure from the technique and movement of the players around him." Henry has won the World Cup and European championship with France and the Premier League and FA Cup with Arsenal, including the double in 2002, he is the 2003 English footballer of the year and a candidate for the 2004 FIFA world player of the year yet there will almost certainly be more to come.

Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger said: "He has intelligence and ambition. When you put those two things together you have a player who wants to improve.

"He will get better because he wants to get better."