By Myles Palmer
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THE TABLOID/SKY media thrives on aggro and conflict – and exaggerates trivial events so that they seem like wars.
But Arsenal Football Club tries to rise above all that.
They are not like Spurs, marooned in mid-table for a decade.
They are not like Chelsea, who have bought six midfielders they don’t need.
They are not like Leeds, fighting bankrupty.
Major Arsenal shareholders don’t attack the manager on the front page of a Sunday paper every week.
Historically, Arsenal was stable, but dull,in the Fifties and Sixties and Seventies.
A wonderful institution, but not ambitious enough.
Then David Dein came along and yanked THE CLUB into the modern world.
Then they hired Arsene to modernise THE TEAM.
ARSENE’S JOB is the management of change.
And change is the opposite of stability.
He inherited an old team and had to make it younger.
After a year his holistic training methods had made Bould, Dixon and Winterburn feel two years younger.
That was smart : it did not cost too much money.
Arsene believes in squad harmony, but he also believes in competition for places.
It’s very, very important to AW that the squad gets on with him and get on with each other.
Football is a collective thing that needs a collective approach and a collective spirit.
It’s hard to balance those two things, harmony and competition for places.
Just as it’s hard to balance the short-term need to win games with the long-term need to revitalise your team with younger players.
Only a very, very unusual character can manage a football club for seven years and achieve so much change while ALSO achieving so much stability.
WHAT DO I THINK OF MANCHESTER CITY?
Well, I love Man City.
Sadly, it has been the destiny of City to be owned by stupid people.
It looked like recent chairman Bernstein knew what he was doing, but he has gone.
In a piece here I once predicted that Anelka would not score against Arsenal because he would be asking Patrick where they were going to dinner tonight.
ANELKA SCORED THAT DAY.So I got that wrong.
Arsene has mainly been a star-maker, rather than a buyer of stars.
Like Danny Fiszman, he is in the rough diamond business.
The only huge star he has signed was Marc Overmars.
Other players cost more, were gifted, were internationals, but they had not achieved as much as Overmars.
Arsene signed Anelka in February 1997 and Reyes in January 2004.
An 18-year old rough diamond, and a 20-year old rough diamond
Anelka came on a free but there was such a controversy that Arsenal paid PSG £500,000, or so we were told.
REYES could cost a total of £17 million.
Everything will be strange for the lad at first, but playing against Celta Vigo won’t be. I already figured Arsenal could beat Vigo twice. I’m sure now.
Reyes now needs three or four weeks on the training pitch with his teammates before he will start to feel at home.
But he could do a Freddie against City.
In February 1998, the Swede made his debut as a sub, for Anelka, and scored, taking a pass from Bergkamp to lob Schmeichel for 3-0 against Man United.
It’s been a depressing week, with the Hutton Report being such a ridiculous whitewash, so it will be fun to get back to football and see Arsenal spank Man City.
Tony Blair and Kevin Keegan, what a pair!
After Euro 2000, when the clueless Keegan should have been sacked, he carried on for one more game and quit at Wembley, finally owning up after a 1-0 defeat by Germany.
Keegan then vanished from the face of the earth.
It was the greatest disappearing act since Lord Lucan.
Where was he?
Weeks went by. Months and months went by without a squeak from Mighty Mouse.
I started to miss him.
I wondered when he would pop up again.
And where did he eventually pop up?
In the back garden of No 10, Downing Street, kicking a football with Tony Blair, talking about government money for the grassroots.
What a pair they are !
Keegan is so good at managing his image.
My mole in No.10 says Tony is gutted to find that 83% of British people believe the BBC more than they believe the government.
However, ANR can exclusively reveal that Tony Blair’s choice as the new Chairman of the BBC’s Board of Governors is….Lord Hutton !
That is the nature of power.Power is not hip. Power rarely has a sense of humour. Power is usually paranoid. Power does not sabotage itself.
As you know, power rewards obedience and loyalty.
31 January 2004.