The Professor: Ars�ne Wenger: Arsene Wenger at Arsenal: Amazon.co.uk: Myles Palmer: Books

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A lively, quirky and clever analysis of Wenger's time at Highbury' Time Out 'a readable and informative biography' Total Football 'a beguiling glimpse into the world of one of the game's top managers' Shoot

Time Out

'The book is a lively, quirky and clever analysis of Wenger's time at Highbury.' --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Customer Reviews

16 Reviews

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
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3.0 out of 5 stars (16 customer reviews)

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31 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Less a biography ... more an account of Arsenal under Wenger, 4 Oct 2001

By

ROBERT BLUFFIELD (Milton Keynes, Great Britain) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Professor: The Biography of Arsene Wenger (Hardcover)

I had high expectations when I picked up The Professor. Instead of the book being a true biography of Arsenal FC's outstanding manager, Myles Palmer has simply strung together his own reviews of the five years that Wenger has been at the helm with precious little about the man that we hadn't already read in the press or seen in post-match interviews. As such he's done his research extremely well but this hardly makes a biography.

The book is completely reliant on Mr Wenger's press conferences, media interviews and the Club's AGMs although it is unclear whether the author was present at these meetings or if he relied on third party information.

Only a single chapter has been devoted to Wenger's early life in his native France and similarly the same applies to his spell at Grampus Eight in Japan. This pair of chapters together comprises less than 14 pages of a book containing 290! We learn that his father was a restaurateur, that he was more interested in German football in his younger days and that he is a private man who is impressed with the culture of Japan.

Chapter three devotes some time to the club boozers without going into great detail of, for example, the reasons behind Paul Merson's transfer. The remainder of the book is little more than a blow-by-blow account of Arsenal's performances since Wenger has been in charge, with plenty of the author's own opinions.

There is no word to mention whether Arsene Wenger co-operated with the book. I very much doubt he was, because there has been no attempt to address his approval or otherwise nor has the subject been asked to write a preface. Because of this the reader is left feeling short-changed with too many essential questions left unanswered. I would like to have gained some insight behind the real reasons that caused Overmars to depart at a time when he was scoring regularly for the team and playing some exciting football. Similarly the author states that Petit was "a pain in the backside to the manager" without explaining this rather bland statement nor the reason's for this player's departure.

An in-depth biography of Arsene Wenger is, in my opinion, long overdue. I had hoped that this would fill the gap and divulge so much more about the inner workings of this bright, well educated, individual. Instead "The Professor" leaves the reader with a very empty feeling but with plenty of the author's uninvited personal opinions about the Club and it's individual players to mull over. It also left me with the opinion that Mr Palmer is a supporter of the club (but not a true life-long Gooner) and that he feels better qualified to pick the team than Mr Wenger. Although David Seaman is starting to show his age, Myles Palmer also leaves the suggestion that the England keeper should hang up his boots now before it's too late.

It must be said that this book is a very limp attempt to disguise a biography with a season-by-season review of one of our greatest football clubs. If you buy it to discover more about the life story of a fascinating man, then you will be very disappointed and will have wasted your money. Even as a die hard Arsenal supporter, the text begins to get tedious and there is little to get excited about after the fourth chapter.If you are a regular fan, that goes to the matches and subscribes to the official programme, then much of the book's content will be familiar to you in any case.

I guess we'll have to wait a bit longer to see if Arsene Wenger takes the lead of Alex Ferguson and decides to pen his autobiography. Certainly he has the intelligence and language skills to do the job justice and maybe we will be rewarded by a book that will be destined to be one of the finest football accounts in history. Let's hope so.

Bob Bluffield

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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars No original research at All, 4 Dec 2008

By

Paul J. Sinnott "Paul S" (Saffron Walden, England) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Professor: Ars�ne Wenger: Arsene Wenger (Paperback)

This is not a biography at all. The author clearly did not even travel to France or interview Wenger. All this does is re-hash Arsenal's seasons under Wenger with match reports and press conferences.

Nothing here that any keen Arsenal fan won't already know. This is a cynical cash in and I would steer well clear.

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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars There are alternatives to this sort of nonsense, 13 Oct 2009

By

Mr. A. L. Attwood "tony Attwood" (Corby, Northants United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Professor: Ars�ne Wenger: Arsene Wenger at Arsenal (Paperback)

If I could have given this book a zero I would.

The point is that there is no shortage of pieces about Wenger - indeed his every move is analysed each day on a thousand blogs, from the rabidly anti rants, to places like Untold Arsenal, which openly says on the site "supporting the Lord Wenger in all he does".

The point is that when there is a huge array of free documentation about the man, there is no need for a poorly researched, and poorly written book which is, as so many others have said, just a run down of press statements and pubs.

I remember reading that this writer goes around saying, "I wrote The Professor," as if this is his life. I wrote "Making the Arsenal" and I am proud of that book, but I have the rest of my life too.

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4.0 out of 5 stars People seem to miss the point
What people seem to miss is that The Professor is NOT a biography. It is a book that covers the Wenger years at Arsenal. Read more

Published on 31 Aug 2008 by M. Son