The Professor: Arsene Wenger at Arsenal (Paperback)

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

If you want to know what Wenger said and did between 1987 and 2002 this will be a reasonably good record. If you want in-depth analysis into what makes him tick, I think you will be disappointed. It fails to give significant insight into the psyche of the man. In that sense, "The Professor" is more an extended news bulletin than a biography.

Also, I noticed about half a dozen factual errors (e.g. the Newcastle goalkeeper in the '98 Cup final was Given, not Harper; the crucial killer ball to Overmars in the '98 victory v Man United at Old Trafford was from Anelka, not Bergkamp). I wondered how many other mistakes I had missed and sometimes doubted if what I was reading was actually true.

This is a lively account written in a slightly whimsical style and is entertaining. I don't regret buying it because it is a good read, but it is not as authoritative as I would have liked.