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

[redgunamo]

Sure, but AW managed change rather than drove it, I think.

No, we decided money was the way forward, as opposed to old-fashioned "values" or what-ever-have-you, and got AW in precisely because, for one thing, He knew where all the cheap foreigners were hidden. Without Him, we wouldn't have/couldn't have done it; we may have been merely content with our lot and carried on as before, waiting for the Chinese to catch on and pay us billions.

You can't have it both ways by painting Him as a victim of our lost or transformed values; He himself was the key agent of that change. He had met and had become friends with David Dein some years before we made Him manager, don't forget.

[Burney]

No, we decided money was the way forward, as opposed to old-fashioned "values" or what-ever-have-you, and got AW in precisely because, for one thing, He knew where all the cheap foreigners were hidden. Without Him, we wouldn't have/couldn't have done it; we may have been merely content with our lot and carried on as before, waiting for the Chinese to catch on and pay us billions.

You can't have it both ways by painting Him as a victim of our lost or transformed values; He himself was the key agent of that change. He had met and had become friends with David Dein some years before we made Him manager, don't forget.

I don't deny he wanted change. However, nobody in their right mind could possibly believe that the changes he's seen are what he would have wanted. We were once a club with a very distinct culture and ethos (which he valued) and now we're just a corporate cash cow being ruthlessly milked by a foreign absentee landlord with the help of his bland yes men.

It's a bad business.

[redgunamo]

I don't deny he wanted change. However, nobody in their right mind could possibly believe that the changes he's seen are what he would have wanted. We were once a club with a very distinct culture and ethos (which he valued) and now we're just a corporate cash cow being ruthlessly milked by a foreign absentee landlord with the help of his bland yes men.

It's a bad business.

You make Him sound terribly naive. Surely He would've seen all that as inevitable, indeed desirable. Or do they give you economics degrees in Elsaß for collecting enough Kronenbourg bottle tops

Actually, don't answer that. It's France, after all.

[IUFG]

You make Him sound terribly naive. Surely He would've seen all that as inevitable, indeed desirable. Or do they give you economics degrees in Elsaß by collecting Kronenbourg bottle tops

Actually, don't answer that. It's France, after all.

Arsene got sucked into the corporate machine didn't he? £10m per annum?

Or was that his plan all along..?

[redgunamo]

Arsene got sucked into the corporate machine didn't he? £10m per annum?

Or was that his plan all along..?

Typical French MO really; wreak havoc, loot the place, make off with the swag, deny any responsibility; blame the British #YuanmingYuan

[Luis Anaconda]

Typical French MO really; wreak havoc, loot the place, make off with the swag, deny any responsibility; blame the British #YuanmingYuan

Yeah but great wine and fit women - we can forgive them a lot

[redgunamo]

Yeah but great wine and fit women - we can forgive them a lot

Absolutely. Quite right.

[Burney]

You make Him sound terribly naive. Surely He would've seen all that as inevitable, indeed desirable. Or do they give you economics degrees in Elsaß for collecting enough Kronenbourg bottle tops

Actually, don't answer that. It's France, after all.

In many ways, he is naive. He believes in honour and works in football. You don't get much more naive than that.

[redgunamo]

In many ways, he is naive. He believes in honour and works in football. You don't get much more naive than that.

That's why I never really warmed to Him, I think. The wider question of "honour" for Him was entirely personal and nothing to do with the Arsenal Football Club. He is a professional, rather like those awfully tragic chaps in Michael Mann films. And I do not mean that as a compliment.

He did a fantastic job for us; we shan't see His like again.