"Foreign glory
hunter." You get this a lot if you tour the comments sections of many
Arsenal blogs or other football fora. I'm long enough in the Gooner tooth to
understand that Arsenal are a club many a neutral love to hate. I can
understand that. In the thirties Chapman took a team from the 'soft' south of
England and transformed them into the best club in the land, dominating in a
manner that the likes of Liverpool and Manchester United wouldn't do for decades.
In the late nineties and
early naughties a bookish looking, diet-conscious, tee-totaling Frenchman came
along and upset the holy equilibrium of lad football culture by taking the same
glorious club to still unequaled heights. In less time than it took Alex
Ferguson to get his hands on a league title, Arsene Wenger did so three times
and along the way produced an unbeatable team, rocking the throne
of Ferguson's United with a bunch of hardly known cast-offs from the
continent and beyond. When money was proving the way in the newly anointed Premier
League, Wenger showed them a cheaper solution without sacrificing all the
swashbuckling style.
