Scene of some of the manager’s greatest triumphs has brought devastating lows more recently and Manchester United will smell bloodDeep in football conversation a few years ago Arsène Wenger outlined a theory he had about how the way managers talk about football can get into a player’s subconscious. This was not everyday football manager‑speak. “The way you speak out is seeds in the brains of your players,” he said. “It is subconscious, it is interesting. I am very interested in the subconscious force of the memory of a team.”In a nutshell the concept is about how strongly certain messages, or raking up of past experiences, can come out in the way a team plays. Related: José Mourinho admits to regrets...
United miscalculated the Alex Ferguson succession and, as Arsène Wenger prepares to visit Old Trafford for the final time with Arsenal, his club has all that potential disruption to comeArsenal have only three away games left in the Premier League this season but happily there is still time for Arsène Wenger to return to Manchester United, the scene of many of the highs and lows in his extraordinary career.One suspects the image that will surface most often this weekend is the iconic one of Wenger banished to the stands in 2009, arms outstretched at the pettiness of it all after being told by match officials that kicking a water bottle in frustration was far too grievous an offence to be...
Arsenal manager seizes opportunity to talk about how worldwide image of the club has taken a battering, not helped by fans inside the EmiratesIt was never going to be a totally normal day. Even if so much of it slipped into the old routines – Arsenal played with every typical Arsenal characteristic and the crowd watched on without getting overly dramatic – there was a surreal sense that underneath it all nobody quite knew what to do about the bombshell. It felt like that quintessentially English thing of having a cup of tea or talking about the weather rather than delving into the deep emotional consequences of a turn of events everybody really cares about.During the game itself Arsène Wenger...
The Frenchman will doubtless receive a vociferous send-off in due course but the crowd’s response was low-key during the 4-1 victory over West hamThe promise had come from Ivan Gazidis. Arsène Wenger’s final game at the Emirates Stadium, the chief executive thundered, would feature “a send-off that the world will take notice of”. That is for later – 6 May against Burnley, to be precise. But what of the manager’s third last home match and, more importantly, the first since the announcement on Friday that he would walk away from Arsenal at the end of the season?The hope and, indeed, the expectation had been for an outpouring of affection to mirror that seen from within the game and across social media since...
His spellbinding peak is too long ago for anyone to still be in denial but as the Frenchman heads to the Arsenal exit it is time to cherish his best yearsThe saddest thing, perhaps, is that of all the thousands upon thousands of words that have been devoted to Arsène Wenger over the last couple of days, it is difficult to recall a single sentence arguing that this is all threatening to be one big mistake and that, contrary to what you might have heard, it isn’t the right time for him to go.It was difficult, however, not to appreciate the cartoon in Saturday’s edition of L’Equipe showing two Arsenal supporters debating the issue and the impression it left about...