Of all the grey haired old men prowling about in the technical area this bloke stands out among them.
Intelligent, level headed, a deep thinker and with every so called “crisis” that deemed to have hit the club, he steers them calmly through.
Despite his calmness I do have to question whether he is rising to panic with the long drawn out (very very long, the speculation began last year) transfer of Arshavin as a solution to fill in the midfield. But if anybody can get the best out of a player it is Arsène.
– Found a decent article about him at Bleacher Report which quotes an old Telegraph article wrote in 2002 by Lee Dixon which I’m also going to quote here:
…”If I were describing him as a person, he is a genuine, honest, intelligent, likeable man. An expert on Bordeaux wines and a speaker of several languages, Arsene has opinions on all things,” said Dixon in his article.
“But bring football into it and he becomes the professor.” There’s no denying that. The way he used to watch his team, and still does, with a certain intensity and the way he analyzes the performances of his players is astounding.
“If we had a run of defeats, a meeting would be called. Then you would get to see the workings behind the man. He had everything written down: graphs, statistics, videos, every facet of our play broken down into minute details. Patterns would emerge through his statistics. It was all about quality control.” recalls Dixon.
Wenger paved the way for the likes of Jose Mourinho, Rafael Benitez, and even Sven Goran Eriksson to an extent to enter into managing English teams. Before him, there was only one foreign coach to take on a job in England—and that was Jozef Venglos at Aston Villa in 1997.
Wenger’s teams have always been known to produce some superb football. But, the squad he inherited in 1997 was not all about style and finesse. The likes of Lee Dixon, Nigel Winterburn, Tony Adams, and Ian Wright were not exactly associated with style—they were very good at what they did and that was just it.
Today, the story is so very different. Arsenal is synonymous with style, movement and the pace of the game has increased exponentially. And all that is because of Wenger’s foresight.
Despite all the criticisms and pressures, he still stands – Which the oft mentioned Away Boyz have dedicated, multiples times, in song and the follow is one I’ve selected:
» Viera Boys v The Away Boyz – Ooh Wenger…– –
We are coming to the end of this mini-thread of songs about players (and the manager) from one particular club… I’ve still got more about other individuals which I may post another time down the line, but I want to give this a rest and air some other material.
For now though the end of the wanderings around the Arse will be in two parts. The first installment today is from a member of the hard to google band “Yeah” which I posted the one about Dennis Bergkamp from them the other day.
This one is a tongue in cheek tribute to the Arsenal from a few years back and in the song Don Sebastiano [bio] manages to namecheck every team member, plus the coaching staff !
The sequel (or is it prequel ?) coming very soon.
I can’t believe the band missed the chance to call themselves The Wengaboys
That photo with Arsene and the lads in a jeep is hilarious. Vela, Walcott, Wilshere, Ramsey… All the “crisis” talk surrounding Arsenal makes me laugh. With the youngsters in the fold, they will be good for years.