Search: ' Damien Comolli'

Adam Bate questions the perception that recruiting from the lower leagues is a risk

Paul Merson risked being accused of xenophobia when he expressed the view last season that Arsène Wenger had put too much focus on buying from France or Belgium and not explored the home market effectively. While Merson could have been dismissed as a Little Englander, he found an unlikely ally in Italian football journalist Gabriele Marcotti, who noted: “Scouting in the Championship is something few clubs do well.” But is the 
talent really there?

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The traditional big clubs of Ligue 1 are being challenged by an astutely assembled teams of upstarts. James Eastham explains

The only way you can tell it’s matchday in Lille is by looking at the buses. If there’s a game on, the slogan “Allez Le LOSC” runs where the name of the destination normally is (LOSC being the acronym for Lille Olympique Sporting Club). But wander into any of the city centre bars showing football and you’re likely to find the majority of the locals sampling the beers the region is famous for barely glance up at the screens.

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Is it possible for Jamie to comment fairly on Harry?

It was no surprise that Harry Redknapp’s appointment as Spurs boss a few days later met with almost universal approval in the press. Most football journalists seem to love Redknapp – while many managers treat reporters with varying degrees of suspicion, he’s affable, talkative and funny, a constant source of good copy. In among the many phone calls he apparently made in the hours after his departure from Portsmouth around midnight on Saturday was a characteristic quip, reflecting on the £5 million compensation agreed with his ex-employers: “Pompey couldn’t sell a player in the window so we sell the manager.”

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Directors of football are a little-loved breed. Adam Powley looks at how the role is plainly failing at Spurs

 The various billionaires now carving up the Premier League are not used to deferring power to their employees. Both Roman Abramovich and the new Abu Dhabi-based owners of Manchester City, coming from cultures that tend towards autocratic rule in commerce and politics, view an omnipotent manager of the British variety as a potential obstruction to the way they do business.

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The Biography
by Xavier Rivoire
Aurum, £16.99
Reviewed by David Stubbs
From WSC 248 October 2007 

Buy this book

There is, among the photographs included here, a picture of Arsène Wenger in a line-up for FC Duttelheim, at the age of 11 in his native Alsace. So exactly did he look then as he does now, from the neck up at any rate, that you might suspect a mischievous bit of photoshopping. The combined, hawkish air of scrutiny but also inscrutability is already engraved on to his countenance. For Wenger, despite numerous examples cited of his thoughtfulness and considerateness, doesn’t always seem quite human. Arsenal supporters have loved and revered the man but have also found him, emotionally, to be a bit of a closed book. Which is why the rise in his spats with a succession of managers, including Glenn Roeder, Alan Pardew, Martin Jol, and, of course, Sir Alex Ferguson and José Mourinho, have almost come as a relief to some fans, despite the fact that they have coincided with a decline in the club’s fortunes.

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