The Arsenal job needs someone with the kind of bone-deep composure that is born to only a few men and surely it makes sense to go for the candidate with the superior credentials?
Apparently, Arsène Wenger does not want too much fuss. Wenger has not even held a press conference before what Ivan Gazidis, Arsenal’s chief executive, promised a couple of weeks ago would be a “send-off the world will take notice of”. Somehow, I wonder whether Gazidis was getting a little carried away. Arsenal have not even decided yet if they want a statue of Wenger when, frankly, one should have been announced on the day the abdication was announced. They will give away 60,000 “Merci Arsène” T-shirts but nobody should expect a helicopter to whizz Wenger away, à la Kevin Keegan at Newcastle in 1984, or the crowd to genuflect in his direction. Wenger, sad as it is, just doesn’t inspire that kind of worship. Not any more, anyway.
If that sounds a little downbeat on the day he says adieu to the Emirates, perhaps it is a legacy of being there for the game against West Ham, two days after the news that Wenger was being cut free, and the unshakeable feeling on that occasion that it was not going to be an easy separation. Arsenal’s supporters did not have the energy for a love-in and, overall, it was a rather sad business. It was blandness the crowd feared the most, not saying goodbye. Anyone expecting to see petals thrown at Wenger’s feet was badly mistaken.
Related: And now, the end is near, and Arsène Wenger faces the final curtain | David Hytner
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