Arsene Wenger: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. I love them all.

By: Rob | August 31st, 2009

I don’t support any of the Prem clubs, but I have a deep liking of Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger. He’s a quietly spoken, intellegent man who knows his football, and is nicknamed The Professor. He also is prone to the kind of crazed moments as above, where after being sent to the stands with less than a minute left of a match, stood with the Man United fans in protest.

He does seem, of late to be more mad than genius. He’d been constantly complaining about the Eduardo situation, there was that incident at OT at the weekend, and he’s come out this morning and accused Man United of anti-football.

But really, that’s why we love him isn’t it?

I love how he spends most of his time coldly analyitical, and yet will strike out at a rival manager if they annoy him. I love the human moments, like when he tries to celebrate with one of his players and they ignore him. I love love love, the dancing.

He is an absolute genius. He bought free-flowing attacking football to a club which was nicknamed “Boring, Boring Arsenal” for years, because of their concentration on defence. He bought in dietary ideas and ideals that helped turn the Premier League into the world’s top league.

You might not agree with his policy of cherry-picking young talent from across the world, but you have to admire its genius. And why not? He’s given careers to any number of young players who may or may not have made it otherwise. Despite their constant attempts to bring him back, would Cesc Fabregas have broken into a Barca side that already had Xavi and Iniesta ahead of him? It seems unlikely. Now when he inevitably returns, it’ll be as a hero.

He bought geniuses like Denis Bergkamp to the Premier League. He made a genius out of Thierry Henry, who previously was an out-of-sorts winger at Juventus, who was kept out of the France team by Stéphane Guivarc’h. He’s built teams that are an absolute joy to watch, including a team that just couldn’t lose.

Last season there were a few whispers going around that Wenger had lost it, and it was time for him to give it up at Arsenal. But I disagree, I think with a bit of patience this new side he’s building will be title contenders. This season maybe not – although they’ve done nothing to suggest it won’t be this year that they step up.

So he has had his good moments – he’s the most decorated manager Arsenal have ever had. He has his bad moments – Francis Jeffers anyone? No? Richard Wright? No? Anyone? And he’s had his hilariously ugly moments – Pizzagate, dancing, ranting absolutely never seeing any incident involving his players. I don’t know how you can have anything but affection for the guy. He genuinely lights up English Football.

So it pains me to see people bring the knives out when he has moments that are a bit crazy. Because surely, just like anytime Andrei Arshavin opens his mouth, or when his ex-goalkeeper Jen Lehmann spoke, surely you love it? Don’t you?