The criteria for anyone wishing to be known as "The new Thierry Henry" are fairly strict. Unlike "The new Zidane", which simply requires you to do the roulette and be able to pass the ball accurately over short distances, or the "The new Ronaldhino" which simply requires you to have more than one trick, "The new Thierry Henry" requires the following things: Firstly, you have to be French, secondly, you have to be of some exotic, preferably African descent, thirdly, you have to be very quick, or at least seem to be very quick, and forthly, you have to be skinny in a languid, lanky, tall sort of a way. Looking cool, having no hair and the possession of a bulbous head are optional, but preferred. Actual footballing ability is a relatively irrelevant atribute in the scheme of things. So it was no surprise then that when first Sunderland, and then Manchester United captured the signing of David Bellion, a man with all the right qualifications from the NTH school of footballing cliches, the comparison was made.

Bellion was plucked straight from the Cannes academy by Sunderland in 2001 and despite scoring only 1 goal in roughly 20 appearances at the Stadium of Light, going AWOL to France for a short period and declaring himself "mentally unfit" to play, he was bizarrely snapped up by Manchester United in 2003. Going someway to explaining this transfer, United boss Sir Alex Ferguson also splashed out on an array of colourfully poor characters that season including confusingly named Cameroonian Eric Djemba Djemba, braces wearing Brazillian lightweight Kleberson and some Portugese kid with oddly dyed messy hair called Cristiano...erm...something.

Bellion was somewhat of a success, relatively speaking, in his first season at Old Trafford. At still only 21 he was viewed as one for the future, and impressive goals against Tottenham and Everton went someway to showing the United faithful that the boy had potential. Sadly though, the boy didn't really have that much potential and he slipped further and further down the pecking order after the arrival of Alan Smith, Louis Saha and Wayne Rooney. He excelled in the reserves but when promoted to the first team he was relatively ineffectual. Sometimes used as a super sub striker (relatively ineffectually) and sometimes as a winger (significantly ineffectually) he never quite found his niche, his groove, or his top form, before being shipped out on loan to West Ham, where he made only a hand full of appearances despite scoring on his debut against Sheffield Wednesday in the League Cup.

He moved back to France with Nice in 2006 and now plays under Larry White (Laurent Blanc for the slow on the uptake) at Bordeaux, where's he's regained some of his earlier promise in a less physical and competitive league. Bellion's problems weren't with his skill, but with his physicality and confidence. He never looked particularly at ease playing at United and was almost unanimously awful against the bigger sides. With strikers of the caliber of Ruud van Nistelrooy and Wayne Rooney ahead of him, he was never going to break through as anything more than a bit part player at Old Trafford, but his failure to make any real impact at West Ham was the final damning nail in the coffin of his Premier League career.

Now back in France and playing semi regularly with the league leaders and current champions, he can hopefully look back on his Premier League career as an experience rather than a failure (though it was quite clearly a failure) and in a country where every 3rd player is "The new Zidane" it may have been forgotten that he was once the old new Thierry Henry.