Redknapp certainly came up with one of the more eye catching headlines last week, as he branded Arsene Wenger a ‘nutter’. Harry believes Wenger is unrecognisable from the man that arrived at Highbury in 1996, he stated,
“All the other nutters were jumping up and down shouting and screaming, hollering and hooting- and this man (Wenger) is not like those idiots. He just sits there and is studying every move that goes on on the pitch like chess. They didn’t lose a game all season. Now he has joined the nutters, you know! In fact, he is one of the key nutters! That is the tension that you are under. It has affected him now.”
Redknapp has raised some interesting questions about Arsene Wenger, and when you think about it, Wenger does seem to have changed since he first became manager of Arsenal.
When Arsene Wenger was appointed as manager at Arsenal, he was a quiet, contemplative coach, which led to him being given the nickname, ‘Le Professeur’. Wenger of course did have his very public feud with arch-rival Sir Alex Ferguson, and was not exactly shy in this respect, but on the touchline he was generally a very calm and calculated character.
It does appear some of the typical stylings of an English manager has rubbed off on Arsene Wenger in recent years. Wenger can often been seen in his technical area gesticulating at his players, shouting at the referee or bringing the fourth official to book, which was perhaps not the case in his first few years in the Premiership. One of the more memorable incidents Wenger has been involved in was at Old Trafford, when he was sent to the stands and stood on a platform behind the dugouts, with his arms outstretched in bewilderment. It was one of the iconic images of last season, but you could not imagine Wenger doing what he did when he initially took over at Arsenal.
Since 1996, Arsene Wenger has become one of the most influential and outspoken individuals in English football. There does not seem to be a day that goes by without a new soundbite from Wenger, and his press conferences and post-match interviews are often highly entertaining, and not infrequently, controversial.
The change seen in Wenger has also made him new enemies. He and Jose Mourinho exchanged bitter barbs within the media when the latter managed Chelsea, and now Tony Pulis and Sam Allardyce have engaged in mind games and wars of words with the Frenchman. The fact that Wenger has become a ‘nutter’, as Redknapp would put it, is not necessarily a negative thing however. It is always good to see passion from a manager on the touchline, and it means his players know exactly where they stand. It is good to hear Wenger defending his players in the media, and outspokenness in a manager can be a positive thing, especially when it gee’s up your own team or negatively affects the opposition.
Whilst Redknapp had his tongue firmly in his cheek when he called Arsene Wenger a ‘nutter’, there is certainly some truth behind what he was trying to say. The days of Wenger quietly sitting down in his dugout and observing the game are long gone, he is now more often seen prowling the touchline. Being in England for such a long time has definitely seems to have had an affect on the Frenchman, but that is no bad thing.
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