It happened like this, I gather.
The French messiah gathered his disciples around him in a circle and told them how they would play.
The conversation was :
“Andrej, I want you to do this, this and this.”
“But that’s stupid, boss !” said the Russian ace.
There was a gasp from the other players. They were deeply shocked when the new guy talked back to the manager.
In a report today, Arshavin reckons Wenger is not as receptive to his input as Dick Advocaat and Guus Hiddink.
He said: “I’ve never had a lengthy personal conversation with him, the way I did with Dick Advocaat. My conversations with Guus Hiddink were not too long either but we did exchange our views on football. For me, it’s important to explain to my manager what I want to do on the pitch. Then he will realise that I make one or another move in a game not because I misinterpreted his instructions but because of my own vision of
football.”
Arshavin speaks his mind. He tells people what he thinks, including the manager. And that’s good. That’s really good. That is what Wenger needs – more opinions, more challenges, somebody to tell him where he is going wrong.
Arshavin says : We need more players like me. Exactly ! We need some men who are not as pampered and precious as the millionaire toddlers at Le Colney Creche.
The Russian is a beacon, an exceptional talent who is in his prime. He will be 28 next Friday. He someone to build round, someone with personality. He has enough bottle to ignore a forearm smash in the face and carry on playing as if nothing has happened.
He knows he is good enough to star for Man United, Liverpool, Barcelona, Bayern Munich, any team in the world. He could be the European Footballer of the Year in the right team.
He wanted to play for Arsenal, and the deal was going to be a last-minute compromise, so he hired a private jet, flew to London, and checked into a hotel in St Albans, so he was available to put his squiggle at the bottom of the page.
AA is a leader with the confidence to speak his mind. He knows he was bought by Gazidis, not by Wenger. He realises he has signed a four-year contract that takes him beyond the end of Wenger’s contract in 2011.
Five years ago I was talking to fellow author Alex Fynn and he said, “There are a lot of precious people at Arsenal.”
It’s true. Since Arsenal do not have a British dressing-room spirit, Wenger has had to create his own unique culture behind the remote-controlled gates of his high-tech French kindergarden .
Players who have won nothing give interviews saying : I’ve improved, I’m a better player this season. Adebayor actually said : I’m scoring with left foot, right foot, headers – I’m a complete player. Bendtner talks in the press about his pink boots !
It took me a while to figure out why Arsenal was the only team in UK who could concede a winning goal to Wayne Rooney at Goodison and then lose the next three games.
One goal lost them four games. How could that be possible ?
Because Arsenal’s French philosophers refused to let the game go, preferring to dwell on the injustice, discussing it in a Hampstead cafe, keeping the trauma alive, so that it crippled them.
Arshavin would never do that. That’s why he is priceless. He is a diamond. If The Professor tries to build round his Putin’s favourite footballer by signing more teenagers from St Etienne, there will be crowd mayhem that makes the booing of Eboue look like a primary school picnic.