My Life in Red and White: The Sunday Times Number One Bestselling Autobiography

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Hence why a wideboy like DD was the perfect foil until he landed himself in the soup through his innate tendency to gamble. As a life long fan of The Arsenal it wasn’t difficult to choose this book but it was wonderful to hear the story behind the move from Highbury to the Emirates and the life of the wonderful Arsene Wenger who made this possible. It also didn’t help that the last 60+ pages of the book are a series of charts and tables with a ridiculous amount of statistical detail of Wenger’s career.

Given the large number of games AW managed, it is unsurprising that his results trended towards the mean. A security bespoke A1 Sporting Memorabilia hologram seal that shimmers and animates when tilted is included on every Certificate of Authenticity. I suspect he recognised quickly that Norton wouldn’t be particularly interested in anything he had to say and so limited his responses. His apartment consisted of just a bed, a sofa and a TV – ‘so that every night I could watch over and over again the matches I’d recorded’ – and his existence was a solitary one, often cut off from family and close friends.The answers, unfortunately, are either missing altogether from My Life in Red and White, or expressed in a way that is long familiar to us .

The book charts his extraordinary career, from his rise in France and Japan where he managed Nancy, Monaco and Nagoya Grampus Eight - clubs that also play in red-and-white - to his twenty-two years at the helm in north London. Major players in Wenger’s teams get a few paragraphs but we gain no insight into who those players are, what Wenger’s relationships with them were like, why they were pivotal players. That afternoon, Arsenal looked years away from being able to challenge Manchester United, the then perennial champions.We did a swap which provided both clubs with players who both underperformed and cost a fortune with little resale value . Among the conditions of these loans was an agreement that Arsenal would spend no more than half of their income on player salaries. The chapter ends with the 2001-2 season, when Arsenal won the title without losing away, and the start of the quest to go one better by going through a season without losing at home either. Why were the defenders who apparently should have been replaced in 1997 still winning titles five years later?

Arsene’s autobiography starts with an account of the young Arsene Wenger growing up in Duttlenheim, a small village near Strasbourg. Thankyou Arsene for all you gave to my boys at the club and Thankyou for the insight into your amazing life. One of the most influential figures in world football, Wenger won multiple Premier League titles, a record number of FA Cups, and masterminded Arsenal's historic 'Invincibles' season of 2003-2004 and 49-match unbeaten run. On the one hand, you have insightful and gripping works by the likes of Sir Alex Ferguson and Paul Merson; and then on the other hand, books such as Ashley Cole’s My Defence, standing out in the memory for all the wrong reasons. But barring welcome flashes of the gentleman we know and love, this surprisingly short book reads too detached, too on-the-surface and routinely abstract and rather vague for someone who has no lack of depth or dearth of stories and fascinating recollections.Meanwhile Mourinho, who cast a long shadow over some of Wenger’s most difficult years, appears once in the book, in a table provided at the end showing his head-to-head record against rival managers. He tells us that he sees FIFA’s roles as: organising competitions; being custodian the Laws of the game; and education, and that he sees his role principally as educational. However there are probably many more examples of players who were signed on the back of a flukily excellent season and revert to their mean level.

This amount includes seller specified domestic postage charges as well as applicable international postage, dispatch, and other fees. Lots of interesting connections in his time at French football that I (and probably many like me) didn’t know: for example, working with Michel Platini’s father in Nancy (but of course years after Platini himself has left Nancy), the formative years of Monaco (and how Monaco has changed as a club over the years), Petit’s time in Monaco.How do you circle your arms around a 22-year career; how, more importantly, can you crystallise the essence of a person’s impact on you when it is as lasting and as potent as this one? In a career as long as his, perhaps the sheer number of players you have disappointed, fans you have upset by selling their idols, journalists to whom you haven’t given decent quotes and opponents that you’ve beaten once too often just becomes too long. We recommend that you check with your local customs officials or post office for further information. I was also surprised by the information that the most common scoreline under Wenger was 1-1, followed by 2-1 and 1-0.