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

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Whether you were seven years old or 70, you’d never seen anything like it at Highbury; even in the years when Arsenal didn’t win anything, they were narrowly failing with the best players in the world – Thierry Henry, Robert Pires, Patrick Vieira, Dennis Bergkamp, Ashley Cole, Freddie Ljungberg. But Wenger’s side never won the Champions League, despite being 14 minutes away from victory in 2006. The chapter ends with Arsenal’s FA Cup win in 2005, courtesy of Patrick Vieira’s last kick of a ball for the club. I would have been interested to know how things might have been organised differently in Wenger’s latter years to avoid some of the problems that became evident – maybe the lengthy description in chapter 9 of the way the game has changed might be an oblique admission that he had too much influence in the club, but there are many other statements of the importance Wenger attaches to a manager being involved in everything about a club. He describes the unrest that led to his resignation in 2018, and his current role as Chief of Global Football Development for FIFA.

Wenger’s decision to eliminate the negative leaves a book that disappoints as an account of football management, if we view the football manager as the most important person at any club . I do however, make enormous allowances for the fact that Wenger is not writing in his native language. Surely a better the place for such a passage would be in the final wrap-up chapter, and wouldn’t a competent editor have suggested that? After a description of Arsenal’s history and culture – well known to drinkers at this establishment – there’s a paragraph each on many of the players Wenger found at the club – Adams, Seaman, Berkamp, Wright and Keown – and descriptions of his first few acquisitions – Vieira, Petit and Garde. The friendship, complicity and understanding between David and me date from that first dinner, and from all the times we’ve seen each other since.He suggested the lad was worth about a tenth of that but ‘Wenger did the deal and he can sell sand to the Arabs! If the facts are known, why would you want to read Wenger’s autobiography that has been translated from French by Daniel Hahn and Andrea Reece?

Life in Cannes was very different to north-eastern France and Wenger gained an insight into the feelings of a newly-transferred player struggling to come to terms with new team-mates not knowing anyone, in a new town. We didn’t follow up on his initial eagerness to sign and this eagerness dissipated after the Bayern debacle . Living in Strasbourg, his main clubs were Racing Club de Strasbourg and German club Borussia Mönchengladbach – but Real Madrid held a special place in his heart. He wasn’t appreciated enough for his work building the stadium and keeping the team in the Champions League, or for turning down rival offers, especially (twice) Real Madrid, the club he loved as a boy. At Monaco, his last job in Europe before Arsenal, he discovered George Weah, once the greatest player in the world, now president of Liberia, and won the French league in his first season.

Photograph: Arsenal Football Club/Stuart MacFarlane View image in fullscreen Wenger celebrates Arsenal winning the Premier League at White Hart Lane, London, in 2004. The banks demanded guarantees such as restricting salaries to 50 per cent of the overall budget,” he reveals. Wenger’s love for the game is obvious (“What matters to me are the game and the men, those moments of grace that football offers to those who love it and give it their all”) as is his detestation of defeat. My Life in Red and White is a disappointment to those of us who anticipated the sort of book at which Wenger once hinted. Afterwards, Wenger asked his father what they’d been talking about and received the reply, in effect, “No idea, I could hardly understand a word he was saying”.

The acme was in the 2003-4 season, when Arsenal won the league without losing a game, a feat that seems unlikely to be repeated. As for the book, Arsene Wenger kept telling us to wait for it and it appears to have been not worth waiting for.I’m making an exception this time because of just how disappointed I was by the recent autobiography of former Arsenal manager Arsène Wenger.

Being 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. Chapter 8 covers Arsenal’s move from Highbury to the new stadium finishing with a brief description of the 2006 Champions League final. Yet when we signed Arshavin and Ozil, Wenger apparently changed his mind both times at the last minute and the deals were driven by Gazidis. I only hope an unexpurgated draft is tucked away for later publication when the distance of time allows.Registered address Unit 7, Airfield Industrial Estate, Airfield Way, Christchurch, Dorset, BH23 3PE. It was a measured criticism , couched in great affection , cognisant of what he achieved at his zenith .