“All great football
managers are revolutionaries at first. Take Arsenal’s Arsene Wenger. Appointed
in 1996, he was Leon Trotsky: the general brimming with new ideas, ferocious
energy and seemingly countless different ways of doing things. By the time Wenger
was eased out in 2018, he was north London’s Leonid Brezhnev, the leader of the
Soviet A revolution in a particular area of human activity is an important
change in that area.”
“ A revolution in a
particular area of human activity is an important change. The nineteenth
century witnessed a revolution in ship design and propulsion....the Industrial Revolution.
Synonyms: transformation, shift, innovation, upheaval. More Synonyms of Revolution.”
Collins Dictionary
The title of Charlie
Watts's new book is Revolution. The word means many things to many people. In
the context of this book, it is about a football manager who turned around a
failing club by initiating a revolution. Harper Collins has called this book a
“first of its kind.”
The writer of Revolution
is Goal’s Arsenal correspondent Charles Watts. The biggest challenge facing any
writer about football is to tell us something we did not know, which is very
difficult given the scrutiny every club gets from the media. To his credit,
Watts does exactly that. A significant part of the book concentrates on how the
new Arsenal manager, Mikel Arteta, managed to change the toxic culture at the
club and reconnect with the fans.
One spectacular and
emotional way he has done this is using the English singer Louis Dunford’s song
The Angel as an anthem played and sung at the beginning of every home game. Dunford
was born and raised in north London, released a single called 'The Angel' in
February 2022, and Gooners have picked up the chorus, which goes:
North London Forever
Whatever the weather
These streets are our
own
And my heart will leave
you never
My blood will forever
Run through the stone
The new Arsenal Football
Club manager, Mikel Arteta, was a former Arsenal captain from the Basque region
of Spain. His first coaching job was under Manchester City’s Pep Guardiola. He has
been compared to Arsenal’s former great manager, Arsene Wenger. Like Wenger,
Arteta has revolutionised this old club.[1] In
a limited sense, Watts is correct in saying that Arteta would prove to be a
revolutionary, and the results of this Revolution are showing in his new team
now.
Charles Watts is a man
of many sides. He is part of the Arsenal press pack and has been a fan since
1989. A year in which all Arsenal fans cherish the memory of. [2]Although
close to the Arsenal establishment, his book does not glorify the club or its
personnel. Nor is it a biography of Arteta, as it contains little of his life or
upbringing. It concentrates on how Arteta has continued the legacy of Wenger. Arteta
acknowledges the past by displaying a giant Wenger picture and quoting Wenger
at Arsenal’s London Colney training complex. He also invited Wenger to return
as a spectator to the Emirates last Boxing Day.
Arteta, like Wenger,
lives and breathes football. Both are highly intelligent men. According to Watts,
outside of his family and football, Arteta has little other interest except
barbecuing. Even in a bitter London winter, he uses these to bond with his
staff and players leading former Arsenal player Bacary Sagna to say, "Before
I could say hello, he was hammering me about formations. All I was doing was
looking for the snacks.”
Perhaps the book's most
interesting and insightful parts are when Watts examines the nuts and bolts of
Arteta’s Revolution. Watts
is more a chronicler than an interpreter of events. Most Arsenal fans would
have seen much of Arteta’s Modus Operandi in the extremely interesting 2021-22
Amazon Prime Video’s All Or Nothing series. Arteta operates on very simple principles
revolving around “non-negotiables”. These are chiefly mutual respect and taking
responsibility on the pitch. He sees Arsenal as a collective rather than a set
of disparate individuals.
A brutal example of how
Arteta applies his method is the treatment of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang. When
his captain and leading scorer missed a COVID test, broke lockdown regulations
by having a tattoo, and arrived back late from compassionate absence. Auberyang
already had a catalogue of poor timekeeping. Arteta was ruthless. He even
compiled a dossier of Aubameyang ‘s misdemeanours for the Arsenal legal team. The
£56 million player man left on a free transfer to Barcelona.
As was said earlier,
Watts is not completely in Arsenal’s pocket and to his credit, as Dan from the
website Just Arsenal writes:
“He puts any connections
to one side and gives both sides of an argument. Other journalists would have
feared impacting their relationships with the club and/or Arteta, but Watts
doesn’t only write what those two want to hear. For example, he strongly
implies the belief held by many that Ozil was dropped for non-football reasons,
giving strong facts to back up that theory. I won’t give spoilers, but it’s
fascinating how, essentially on Zoom, the squad were asked to agree to a wage
reduction to save staff jobs during the pandemic. When Arsenal couldn’t get the
75 per cent agreement they needed (Arteta steps in and convinces some to change
their mind), Watts asks why Ozil was the only name leaked to the press. He
bravely points out that Arsenal lied. 55 staff were still made redundant
despite their employer being worth 6.3 billion! He also questions why Matt
Smith was on the bench in the Cup Final at the expense of Ozil purely for
footballing reasons. (Smith would never kick a ball for our first team).[3]
While Watts is a gifted
writer and communicator, he shies away from examining Arteta and the club in the context of the
growing financialisation of football. Football is big business. FIFA, the world
governing body, controls a budget of 4bn Euros. Although he briefly mentions that
Arsenal was involved in the attempted creation and debacle of a European Super
League, his analysis is superficial. As Robert Stevens writes, “The corporate
interests in control of the ESL clubs misjudged the popular mood. They were surprised
by the backlash against their proposals—reflecting the growing anger against
the parasitic billionaire oligarchy and the capitalist system that sustains it.
But they remain determined to press ahead. Perez declared on Thursday, after
nine of the 12 founding teams had withdrawn, “We're going to continue working…
the project is on standby.”Plans for a Super League are not an aberration. It,
or something like it, is the logical next step in a sport increasingly
dominated by giant corporate and financial interests. The conflict between UEFA
and FIFA on the one hand and the ESL founder owners on the other is a
competition between two business models, each designed to ensure the lion’s
share of revenues for the top clubs.[4]
Watts's book is one of
the better footballing books. A must for any Arsenal fan and a very good
Christmas present. As Watts writes: “Arsenal’s rise back towards the summit of
English football under Mikel Arteta has been a journey that has captivated the
fanbase and brought an energy to Emirates Stadium that hasn’t been seen since
the move from Highbury in 2006. Arteta has made some difficult decisions and
faced some massive challenges during his short time in north London, but in
doing so, he has changed the culture of a club that just a few years ago seemed
to have totally lost its way.“Whatever happens between now and the end of the
season, Arsenal are back on track and in Arteta, they have one of the sharpest
minds in European football pushing the club forwards. I’m excited and
privileged to tell this story.”
