By Myles Palmer
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GAEL CLICHY is out of the Wigan game and Stuart Baxter is available.
Clichy is a marvellous player and his turf-skimming flights up the left flank are a big part of Arsene’s style of play.
The left back cracked his metatarsal in the first Under-21 play-off game against England, a 1-1 draw.
France beat England 2-1 in Nancy last night, so Clichy will play in the 16-nation tournament when he recovers. Lucky boy !
WIGAN BOSS Paul Jewell is a street-smart scouser with six wins in a row. That is no fluke.
How good are Wigan?
We will find out at 12.45 on Saturday.
STUART BAXTER has resigned as coach of South Africa after failure to qualify for 2006.
He is the man Arsene wanted as his No.2 in 1996.
I STILL RECKON Arsene needs somebody to talk to.
Bob Paisley, Joe Fagan and Roy Evans won the European Cup. So did Brian Clough and Peter Taylor.
Matt Busby and Jimmy Murphy won the European Cup and Sir Alex and Brian Kidd won it as well.
Arsenal 2005 is too much of a one-man show.
The manager should re-configure his staff.
He needs a No2 to bounce ideas off. Somebody to contradict him now and then.
Baxter is 52, a very good Englishman who was worked in Scandinavia, Japan, everywhere.
His input might make a big difference at Arsenal if he would agree to come as a No2.
As Jock Stein once said,”You need a few opinions about the place.”
At Arsenal, a club trying to be the biggest and best in the world, there is only one opinion.
That is a strength – and a weakness.
As you know, Jock Stein’s Celtic won the European Cup in 1967, beating Inter Milan 2-1 in Lisbon with a team of eleven Scots , all of whom were born within a 25-mile radius of Celtic Park.
November 16th 2005