By Daily Sports on May 23, 2017

Tony Adams, the captain of Arsenal in 1996 when Arsene Wenger was appointed manager of the club and a legend for his great exploits in the football pitch has come out swinging against his former coach who has just failed to guide the club into the Champions League for the first time in 20 years.

Wenger, the one who is widely regarded as the revolutionary that changed the tactical, managerial and dietary direction of English football for the better, has lost the support of a lot of the club’s supporters now owing to the club’s struggles to win a major title in recent years. Not a few of the fans want to see a change in  manager at the club, and now his first Arsenal captain has picked this time to not only criticise Wenger’s recent perceived failings, but he has actually gone beyond that to criticising Arsene’s overall knowledge of coaching.

Adams said of Wenger in his new book being serialised in the British Sun newspaper: “He couldn’t coach his way out of a paper bag.”

Adams was talking about someone with a career that has seen him unearth a world best player (George Weah) from Africa, a career that Japanese fans overwhelmingly acknowledged changed their game to a more exciting brand of football when he was there to coach Nagoya Grampus in the ’90s and a career that has seen him win the English FA cup more than any other manager in the history of the cup and a career that has won the English Premier League three times, including going unbeaten for a whole season in 2003/4.

In considering the timing of the release of the book, Adams must have been filled with a feeling of warmth and satisfaction. Coming at a time when Wenger is the object of much blame and when everything Arsenal is much in the news, he must have thought it was a very good time to achieve two things: one is larger book sales and the other is an opportunity to get back at Wenger over the Frenchman's refusal to have Adams as a close assistant in the clubs senior team.

But the truth is that it is a disrespectful and stupid move by Adams especially given his present failure as a coach himself. Wenger has appropriately responded by challenging Adams to show his worth as a manager, and the fact is that so far, in a career that has taken him to several countries the world over, the ex-Gunners captain has proven to be out of his wits as far as coaching is concerned.

So far, Adams has lost all seven matches that he has been in charge as manager of Granada in Spain and failed to steer the club away from relegation. If Adams is that good enough to bring something good to Arsenal he should have been showing signs of it in his past coaching positions, but he simply hasn’t.

Adams wants people to believe that Wenger is scared of dissenting voices within his coaching crew. He wrote: “Arsene is so dominant that he was probably not going to like it if I said, ‘We’re conceding bad goals, I’m going to take the back four today and organise them’.”

Just read his words and pause to think for a minute. How many bosses would like a bigheaded subordinate to come up and say, without respectfully seeking permission, “boss, an aspect of the job you’re doing doesn’t look good. I’m gonna take over and do it better”?

Adams words about Wenger, (a man who guided away from his troubling alcoholism problem and helped prolong his playing career) offers a clear picture about the kind of person who he really is.

He also reveals much of the kind of coach he is and a manager of personalities when he publicly blamed the Granada players for the club’s relegation.

“I think nothing was going to work with this group of players,” Adams said. “I think we’ve tried every formation, just like Lucas (Alcaraz, his predecessor) did. We've had three coaches, and we’ve had the same results, so you have to look at the players.”

It is classless to say that publicly about a group of players who have represented the club, while absolving yourself as coach of any blame.

Disloyalty is a part of the human condition and Adam’s behaviour is akin to that childish character exhibited by some young players who, when their coach’s decision about them has not gone down well, will snap and say, “he doesn’t know how to coach”.

Source Daily Sports

Posted May 23, 2017

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