BY TOMORROW evening, after Thierry Henry's medical at the Nou Camp, Arsene Wenger will be the sole remaining member of the trinity which brought so much success to Arsenal and blazed an innovative trail in the way a Premiership club should be run.

David Dein was ousted two months ago. Henry will move to La Liga for £16 million and a deal worth £26m over the next four years. And Wenger is left to pick over the wreckage.

Henry made no secret of the fact that the uncertainty at the club played a huge part in his decision. He made it clear that the manager's own doubts over his long-term future made it impossible for him to stay.

"Unfortunately and understandably Wenger has said that at this moment he will not commit to the club past the expiration of his current deal which finishes at the end of the coming season," Henry said.

"I respect his decision and his honesty, but I will be 31 at the end of the season and I cannot take the chance to be there without Arsene Wenger and David Dein. It is now or never for me and sadly it has to be now."

Debate will now shift over whether the sale is a good deal for Arsenal and whether Wenger will now follow suit and walk out.

It's interesting to note however just how the transfer market has evolved. There were seven £30m-plus transfers between 1999 and 2002. Since then, there has been but one: Andriy Shevchenko's move to Chelsea.

The time when clubs would come in and throw enormous amounts of cash around to persuade a player to swap teams seems to be over. Every single one of the £30m-plus transfers was a purely economic decision, a case of money talking.

Evidently, cash doesn't communicate quite so well anymore. And it's interesting to note the reasons behind this shift. Partly, it's the realisation that staking all your chips on one player does not always make sense.

While they may never admit it, Real Madrid may well feel that signing three £16m stars instead of one Zinidine Zidane might have improved their trophy haul, which, lest we forget, amounted to one La Liga title and one Champions' League in Zidane's five seasons.

Partly, big clubs are becoming more fiscally responsible, at least some of them. Barcelona have spent the last few seasons clawing back the debt accumulated under previous regimes and Milan have run at close to break-even in each of the last few seasons.

Liverpool, Arsenal and Manchester United are also keeping a closer eye on the bottom line, the first two due to stadium projects (planned or completed), the latter because of the enormous debt-load the Glazers have dumped on the club.

Another factor is the disappearance of the second-tier, clubs who float just beneath the big boys and who, in years past, tried to compete. Think of the likes of Lazio, Leeds, Parma, Betis, Roma, Deportivo La Coruna, Borussia Dortmund, Fiorentina.

Not too long ago, each of them was capable of shelling out £15m or more plus a hefty contract. Not these days.

Their absence means there is a lack of potential buyers at the highest level. Which, in turn, means that supply outstrips demand. And when that happens, as our old economics textbooks taught us, prices tend to decline.

But the absence of a "second tier" has another effect. It has eliminated the re-sale market. In the past you could spend £20m on a striker and, if things did not work out, sell him to a second-tier club a year later and get, say, £12m to £15m back. Not any more.

Strikers at big clubs now all pretty much earn in excess of £60,000 a week, and sometimes twice that. Those wages put them out of the reach of the second tier, especially if they have pay a transfer fee on top of that.

The only other viable destination for Henry would have been Milan. And the rossoneri had no interest in entering an auction for the Arsenal striker, not when other top players are also on the market, from Shevchenko to Fernando Torres and from Samuel Eto'o - who looks to be the odd man out at the Nou Camp with Henry's arrival - to Carlos Tevez.

The result is one of the least liquid markets in years, especially now that Roman Abramovich seems to have tightened the purse-strings. Thus when a big name player moves, it's usually a "forced" transfer, like Henry opting to leave Arsenal because of the situation with Dein and Wenger.

And now the hot potato is in Barcelona's hands. Despite the usual denials, it's difficult to see how they can accommodate Henry, Eto'o, Ronaldinho and Leo Messi in the same side. Which suggests that Eto'o - or, possibly, Ronaldinho - may be on his way.

So is this good news for the big clubs? In some ways, yes. Take Liverpool. Rafa Benitez wants to buy a striker. He can take his pick from Diego Milito, David Villa, Klaas-Jan Huntelaar and Torres, playing one club against the other in what is effectively a reverse auction.

The flipside, however, is that each of these players has a "reserve price", a "floor" beneath which the selling clubs won't go. Which may explain why Villa extended his deal at Valencia; he knows the club won't sell him for less than £20m, but he also knows that few clubs are willing to go that high for him.

The irony in all this? Between 2002 and the present, television revenue at the biggest clubs has increased between 30 and 50%. Wages have increased, on average 25%. But at most clubs, transfer spending is stable or even down.

Which makes you wonder where all that extra money is going.