I didn't like yesterday. I thought it should be a more celebratory experience

[Burney]

I am no expert on european football (I have made that clear over the years) but I had heard of him. How can. You miss a story with a word in it that starts Arsene.....

Either way, he wasnt a 'bloke from Japan'.....he had a very successful career at Monaco.

The issue was a big club appointing a foreign manager. And it turned out it was rather a good idea ifyou get the right one....

Sorry, p, but you saying you'd heard of him does not alter the fact that most people hadn't. This is why you had headlines like 'Arsene Who?' and pieces like this spectacularly silly piece by Matthew Norman in which he describes AW as 'a Frenchman from Japan with a funny foreign name'. I'm not saying such ignorance was laudable, but it was very much general and very much real.

http://www.thearsenalhistory.com/wp-...Standard-1.jpg

[Peter]

Sorry, p, but you saying you'd heard of him does not alter the fact that most people hadn't. This is why you had headlines like 'Arsene Who?' and pieces like this spectacularly silly piece by Matthew Norman in which he describes AW as 'a Frenchman from Japan with a funny foreign name'. I'm not saying such ignorance was laudable, but it was very much general and very much real.

http://www.thearsenalhistory.com/wp-...Standard-1.jpg

I think I am just saying it was pretty ignorant. There were constant references (even from Sir Alex) to him having 'come from JApan' when actually he had been managing a very successful european side and was quite well known in Europe.