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

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Perhaps a description from chapter 4 of his relationship with the Monaco players tells us a little about what Wenger misses most from the old days: “It was possible for us to talk. The book was better than I expected all about Arsene Wenger early career up till the departure from Arsenal.

Owning an Arsenal season ticket back then was like living in New York in 1959 and being able to wander down to the Village Vanguard to see Bill Evans and Miles Davis every week: if football was important to you, then you were in the right place at the right time. Chapter 3 covers Wenger’s first couple of coaching jobs – a year at Cannes, then in Ligue 2, and three years at Nancy in Ligue 1. 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. Under his guidance, Arsenal won the Premier League three times, including once without being defeated (“The Invincibles” were unbeaten for 49 consecutive matches between May 2003 and October 2004). I found his experiences in French football and how he evolved towards a more hands-off manager from someone who liked to control every aspect of the game a good insight about he he became the manager we remember as.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”. 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. 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 . Wenger says that he still speculates on what the security men must have thought as he left the building at the end of the night carrying the trophy.

I did hear that Amy was approached early on to work with him and I thought that was going ahead but clearly Arsene wanted ( as is his right) to make his own book .A special event entitled, An Audience with Arsene Wenger OBE and David Dein MBE was scheduled to take place later this month at The London Palladium. There’s a lot of interesting stuff about man-management and team building, but to be honest, nothing particularly new or startling. He sometimes lost his rag during matches, getting sent to the stands or fuming at referees, but once the red mist cleared he was rarely less than dignified.

As a card-carrying fan of Arsene Wenger, I was surprised to discover after reading the book, that I had found it somewhat disappointing. Every single Certificate of Authenticity is also verified by our chief executive officer - to guarantee that the item is genuine and hand signed. 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.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.