By Myles Palmer
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I’LL RAISE a glass to Arsene Wenger on Christmas Day.
And I shall raise another to him on New Year’s Eve.
Because he is the smartest and most ambitious manager in Arsenal’s history.
This guy came to the club in 1996 and has taken two titles off Manchester United Megastore PLC, and missed a third by one point, and has won three FA Cups, and finished in the top two for six years in a row, and he has beaten Valencia 2-1 at Highbury, and beaten Roma away 3-1, and beaten Inter in Milan by 5-1, and he’s also hammered a fine Juventus team 3-1.
His ideas and his players have taken Arsenal to new heights, new places,new horizons.
For the last seven years, his teams have played fabulous football, attacking football, winning football.
Sure, Arsenal have lost some games they could have won, and drawn plenty of games they should have won, BUT THEY HAVE RARELY BEEN OUTPLAYED, except by Dynamo Kiev, by Deportivo, by Man United a few times, by Bolton last Saturday
BUT THERE’S MORE.
Arsene Wenger wanted to do more than beat Man United and Liverpool and, occasionally, Valencia.
He wanted to turn a medium-sized club into a big club.
Think about that for a minute.
Think how hard it is to create a big club out of an outfit that has been punching above its weight since George Graham made it successful in 1989 and 1991.
This team is now so popular that Arsenal could double ticket prices and still sell out every game.
But Arsenal has tried harder than other clubs to treat their fans decently,so they did not do that.
Instead, they are building Ashburton Grove, a bigger stadium. A complex project with a hundred delays and a thousand headaches.
I’ve always believed that Ashburton Grove will be built. Always believed that Arsenal could borrow £260 million and pay it back over 17 years .
On one level, Arsene’s job is daunting enough : to keep winning games in style, to keep trophies rolling in, and to keep believing that his team can win the big one, the holy grail.
Clearly, he does not to have the budget to afford a good player in every position. But he buys good players and useful players and blends them and he plays beautifully fast football that millions of people admire.
When the club moves to Ashburton Grove he will be able to afford a good player in every position, and then he should be able to beat Bayern and Valencia, and win the Champions League, and make Arsenal FC a global brand that commands the biggest deals and can sign the next Ronaldo and the next Shevchenko.
So – let’s be be clear on this – what Arsene Wenger is trying to do is something on a scale that is almost mythical. To pick up a football club and put it on your back and carry it 600 metres down the road and put it into a shiny new super-stadium is a Herculean task.
Hercules, as you know, is a figure from Greek mythology who performed hugely heroic feats for 12 years. He killed a lion, captured a bull, killed a centaur with poisoned arrows, stuff like that.
He also conquered Spain.
History tells us that Arsenal have never won in Spain.
But it’s coming. History will be re-written and it might be quite soon : Celta Vigo v Arsenal is on Tuesday 24th February.
I reckon Arsene Wenger has been waiting for Real Madrid all his life. He has been building up to Real Madrid all his life. Not to manage them, but to beat them.
Arsenal might beat Real Madrid at Highbury or they might have to wait and beat them at Ashburton Grove.
I don’t know which it will be. I have no crystal ball. Just a glass of champagne.
CHEERS, ARSENE – thanks for everything.
Thanks for the stylish power football, thanks for the excitement, thanks for all those wonder goals, thanks for the droll jokes, thanks for the golden memories.
Among so many memories, one day might stand out for me.
My friend Gassan phones one morning and says, “Come with me to Sopwell House.”
So Gassan picks me up and we zoom up to the St Albans hotel that Arsenal used before the training ground was built.
It’s summer, end of July, a warm afternoon, and Arsene is due to give a pre-season press conference, and because it’s such a nice day we sit round a table on the lawn outside.
It’s intimate, informal, just the manager and seven journalists.
I can’t remember what Arsene said that day, but he was very relaxed and he seemed to be, already, one of us, an adopted Englishman, one of those upper class gentleman-adventurers, an aristocrat chatting in his back garden, a youngish sporting explorer ready to face any challenge that the new season could bring, even though he knew that every season is an open-ended expedition, an adventure that has a starting date, but you don’t know where it will take you.
In the future, when I have long forgotten how Arsene was after winning and losing his biggest games, I will remember that sublime summer moment on the lawn at Sopwell House.
After talking to the boss, we felt good. He had made us remember what football is all about.
Merry Xmas, Arsene !
23rd December 2003
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The Professor : Arsene Wenger at Arsenal
by Myles Palmer is available from Amazon.