By Myles Palmer
The current issue of The Gooner fanzine has interviews with Alex Fynn and with yours truly.
Alex says a lot of interesting things. I phoned him last night to bawl him out for saying that Chelsea are a richer club than Arsenal.
But we got talking, as you do,and I forgot to mention that point.
Brian Dawes had reviewed The Professor and they offered me a right of reply in an interview with Kevin Whitcher.
I told Alex that I had said some things in the interview that I should have said in the book.
Alex said that was OK, I could put them in the paperback.
His paperback of The Great Divide, with three new chapters about Arsenal and Spurs, has just come out.
When I said a few things to him he said I should put them in my second Preface for the paperback edition. He urged me to write them down now, so that I would not forget them.
One of the things I said in my Gooner interview was this :
“Managers do not mean everything they say, but Arsene means almost everything he says. Far more than most. I invariably sit in the front row and I can tell what emotions he’sgoing through when he’s saying something. His body language gives him away – and sometimes he’s incredibly angry.
“I don’t quote it in the book, but I was there once when
he said, ‘I’m always angry when we lose – you feel responsible.’
“My guess is that Arsene will never write a book. He will never reveal what he really thinks about his players and various controversial events.
“He’s always looking forward, never back.He is too smart and too honest to ever write anything like the Hoddle World Cup book.
“He has told us a lot, but he will never tell us everything.He doesn’t need the money and he doesn’t want to tell tales on players he has worked with. He respects his players hugely because he knows that all of them are better players than he was.”
22nd September 2001.