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

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Wenger brought Arsenal to three English Premier League titles and seven FA Cups, making the team a constant presence in the UEFA Champions League. He is regarded as a transformative force within English football. At the end of his debut season, just he and Chelsea’s Ruud Gullit represented non-British or Irish managers in the top-flight. By the time he departed all but eight of the twenty teams could boast the same. A hugely disappointing book. The footballing content is abysmal, especially the Arsenal part. Wenger spent 22 years at Arsenal and merely glosses over the two decades in such an inconsequential way that beggars belief, though his self-aggrandisement is prominent throughout. He's solely responsible for making Arsenal a powerhouse team culminating in that incredible Invincibles Season. Arsene Wenger – My Life In Red And White review : Reviewed: Arsene Wenger – My Life In Red And White Wenger was born in 1949, grew up in a village in Alsace, eastern France, and had an early insight into human psychology watching the patrons of the bistro that his parents ran. “Alcohol, brawling, violence, everything that used to scare or disgust me as a child,” he recalls in My Life in Red and White, his new autobiography. He became a hard-grafting midfielder, eventually playing for Strasbourg in France’s top division, but he always thought deeply, even obsessively, about the game, and in his early 30s he moved organically into coaching, first at Cannes and Nancy then Monaco and in Japan at Nagoya Grampus Eight. I don’t know why but football games are my life and I don’t think that’s ever going to change

Arsène is also a hardworking man even in his 70’s he works out for 1,5 hour every morning. He gave it all to his purpose and is an all around great man. Wenger, 70, famously led the club to the best period in their history, including the 2003-04 Premier League-winning Invincibles. Change the plan you will roll onto at any time during your trial by visiting the “Settings & Account” section. What happens at the end of my trial? As well as this we get his views on what a coach should be. But again there's no personality injected into his words. It comes across so mechanical and impersonal that it was boring to read and made him come across as emotionless robot. Case in point, his wife. She's barely mentioned and at one point he describes their relationship as "friendly". Can't you just feel his love radiating as you read that? Definitely a must read for any Arsenal fan. The younger / new fans as well as seasoned fans should give it a read to understand completely how and why Wenger has EVOLVED the football club we all adore.Hostility no, competition yes. It was vital [at Arsenal] that you beat Tottenham for the respect of the club. Competition is important, as long as it’s not crazy. When you [were due to] play Tottenham, at the start of the week everybody was a bit more nervous than usual. Such lego sentences. And beyond that, what did you like about Viera? How did he make you feel? How did he feel? Tell us! Or better yet share anecdotes to show us. How did he fit into your philosohy? What surprised you about him? What did you learn from him? Coaxing that level of introspection and detail would've made for a better read.

The banks demanded guarantees such as restricting salaries to 50 per cent of the overall budget,” he reveals. “And they sought a technical guarantee by asking me to sign up for five years. The project and I were interconnected.” The reason he took Robert Pires off in the 2006 Champions League final What I learned is that the way we behaved created huge popularity all over the world. And it made me realise that in sport, football especially, the values we carried through were respected all over the world. It was not only about winning: of course, what created the popular image of Arsenal was the fact that we won the championships, but it was more than that. People respect clubs for the values as well, for the identity of the club.

Football to him is not merely a profession, most certainly not a hobby, it is framed much closer to an obsession. For the tall Frenchman, it has been a foe who can bring with it sleepless nights, the occasional gift of unbridled joy but consistently a entity against which he battles to improve himself, his players and in much more than a philosophical sense, the game itself. Passages relating to the 2003/04 season where Arsenal’s Invincibles won the League unbeaten provide great insights, particularly of the mental toll exerted on him. The anguish of losing the 2006 Champions League - to Barcelona - is recalled in one of the book’s best passages. Arsene Wenger on a recent Late Late Show interview Gutted - I really wanted this book to be good but to be honest you don’t get anything you couldn’t have learned reading a few post match interviews, and really they would contain more detail.

As too was the notion of philosophy. That Wenger was a visionary, revolutionary of the game is unquestionable. His first years in particular at Arsenal and in English football changed the course of both, and the book explores some of his key thoughts and ideas that underpinned his management, including his expectations of players, the psychology of the game and player management. It was extremely interesting listening to his life at Arsenal. How he discovered players and united them behind the vision of winning. Arsene has always been great at cultivating talent and his scope on developing/scouting young players was a pleasure to listen to.

But what really twines the book together is a showcase of just how far dedication, obsession and loyalty can take someone. By any measure, Wenger is obsessive, and has often been excessively so. His passion for the sport in general has never wavered, and his vision is as clear now as it has ever been; something that strikes a power chord in the final chapter, where he outlines his plans at FIFA to increase development of the rules, young players and contribute to the growth of women's football too. French. I speak German and English well, and French very well [laughs]. I can understand Italian, Spanish, some Japanese, but I speak them less well. But if I live for a while there it’s OK. There are a million questions that Arsenal fans would want Wenger to answer. The answers, unfortunately, are either missing altogether from My Life in Red and White, or expressed in a way that is long familiar to us: the English players stopped drinking and eating Mars bars; he used to have his ups and downs with Ferguson but they get on fine now. Meanwhile Mourinho, who cast a long shadow over some of Wenger’s most difficult years, appears once in the book, in a table provided at the end showing his head-to-head record against rival managers. (Wenger beat Steve McClaren 83.3% of the time; he beat Mourinho 10% of the time.) Chronologically his career is laid out culminating with Arsenal where he led the team for twenty-two years. The impact of Wenger on Arsenal is immeasurable and probably because of the nature of modern-day football commercialisation, will never be replicated. At Arsenal he had total control, he developed some of the best football players the English Premiership/ Europe ever witnessed, he achieved an unbeaten season with a team of INVINCIBLES - love saying that. He was instrumental in the building of a new stadium and advanced football style, medical treatment and diet to new levels. I loved Arsene Wenger and I remember watching an interview with him many years ago when success was regularly achieved, him saying that he would know when it would be time to leave Arsenal. Unfortunately, what tarnished his reputation was that he did not. Wenger has not returned to the sidelines since leaving Arsenal, but as of November he has brought characteristic rigour to his role as Fifa’s head of Global Football Development. He separated from his wife, Annie Brosterhous, in 2015; their daughter Léa is finishing a doctorate in neuroscience at Cambridge University. He divides his time between London, Paris and Fifa’s base in Zurich, often staying in hotels, and he admits that the hardest part of Covid-19 for him was when most of the leagues around the world were suspended. “I don’t know why but football games are my life and I don’t think that’s ever going to change,” he says. “So I missed it very much.”