It's down to top Gunner Henry

THE onus is on Thierry Henry to out-shoot Manchester United marksman Ruud van Nistelrooy as Arsenal face up to being without both Patrick Vieira and Sol Campbell for the Barclaycard Premiership run-in.

Inspirational captain Vieira is currently in France having his damaged knee treated at the same clinic which supervised team-mate Robert Pires' recovery from a serious ligament problem last year.

And although Vieira has pledged to return to action after Saturday's visit to relegation-fighting Bolton, there is concern that he could just as easily have to miss the remainder of the league season.

There is even speculation that the midfield dynamo may have surgery in the close season to tidy up damaged fibres inside the knee that has troubled him since the Champions League clash with Roma in March.

Vieira hopes to return to face Leeds at Highbury a week on Saturday, when centre-back Campbell is due to start a four-match ban for his controversial red card against United unless an appeal hearing next week overturns referee Mark Halsey's decision.

But if neither can play, it could be time for top Gunner Henry to again show his mettle and lead from the front.

The France striker is back in scoring form after a four-match blip, riding his luck to notch a double against Manchester United and then netting a sweet free-kick at Middlesbrough to ensure another 30-plus goal campaign for himself.

But this time the demand for Henry is to keep hitting the target right to the end. He may be leading the Premiership scoring list along with Southampton's James Beattie on 22, but game-for-game he is still massively overshadowed by van Nistelrooy's awesome 38, which includes a record 13-goal haul in Europe.

Henry has earned the tag "a scorer of great goals" rather than a "great goalscorer" but he admitted: "I need to keep getting a few more little goals, the scrappy ones that go in off the back of my leg like the one against Manchester United. It is a great feeling to score a beautiful goal, one you have created, but putting them in from a few yards is, at the end of the day, just as important."

Henry also notched 30 goals last season when Arsenal claimed the Premiership and FA Cup double but he managed just two in the last six games of that campaign - against Everton when the title was already secure in which he struggled over the finishing line with hamstring and knee strains.

The previous season, when he totalled 22, Henry notched just one in the last six and spurned several gilt-edged chances in the FA Cup final defeat by Liverpool.

He also struggled with his fitness then at the end of an exhausting campaign for club and country but now he says: "I feel good because the manager has been able to rest me in some matches this season and I have felt the benefit.

"I feel I can go out there and keep scoring and I know that it is important that I do. At the moment I believe we have a slight edge over Manchester United in the championship race because we have a better goal difference by just one.

"We have also scored, I think, six more goals than them in the league and we have to make sure we keep it that way."

Manager Arsène Wenger said: "It looks like both sides have to aim to win all their remaining matches now. And after our win at Middlesbrough I think we have the momentum again.

"Some people, even some in our own camp, might have thought we would get beaten at Middlesbrough but we showed a great response with self-belief and determination.

"This is why they are a great team to manage because there is such a desire. As soon as we got the first goal at Middlesbrough you could see we would win.

"There was disappointment among everybody that we didn't beat Manchester United after coming back to get a 2-1 lead but you don't let one disappointment knock you right out if you are a champion.

"Now we face Bolton away and we know a team fighting for survival like they are will always be dangerous, but we will go there looking for another strong performance."

The problems go on, though, for Wenger, who with Vieira and Edu both ruled out with their knee injuries, is hoping left-back Ashley Cole recovers from an ankle injury sustained in a challenge which led to Henry's marvellous free-kick clincher at the Riverside.

In addition to the final run-in in which the Gunners face Leeds, Southampton and Sunderland as well as Saints again in the FA Cup final are a string of friendly international dates in which Sweden, France and Brazil are sure to want to call on key Arsenal players.