推 COCOSEL:THX Gunnfather! What a man! 01/20 14:07
http://tinyurl.com/bxlqreg independent.co.uk
by Sam Wallace
By virtue of the statue of him that stands outside the Emirates Stadium, you
could say that Tony Adams's presence is felt at Arsenal every matchday
whether he is there in person or not, but he has had special reason to be
back there of late.
His two sons Atticus, eight, and Hector, six, from his second marriage, had
shown worrying signs of straying from the family loyalty – in short, the
elder was declaring an interest in Manchester United, and his younger brother
said he supported Manchester City. "I was getting very worried about this,"
Adams said. "So I took them to a game or two and now they are Arsenal fans."
When we meet on a frosty morning in the Cotswolds, where Adams now lives, the
most successful captain in the history of Arsenal Football Club is bursting
with ideas and opinions. He had a very public transformation from the classic
lion-hearted English centre-half to a more contemplative, thoughtful man, via
prison and a battle with alcoholism but, at 46, he remains as enthusiastic
for the game as he was making his debut at Highbury, at 17.
Adams is still contracted to Gabala FC, the Azerbaijan Premier League club he
coached until late 2011; he and his family lived out there for 18 months. Now
he is officially an advisor to club president Tale Heydarov, recruiting a
CEO, academy and stadium directors in Europe and establishing the club, which
is building a new ground, in the long term.
He enthuses about his charity Sporting Chance, which put 30 sportsmen through
rehabilitation last year, including three rugby league players who appeared
in August's Challenge Cup final. This year, Adams will himself reach 17 years
sober, and he has already written 30,000 words of a sequel to his bestselling
1998 autobiography Addicted, one of the great sporting memoirs. And then
there is Arsenal.
When he returned from Azerbaijan, he offered his services to the club. He was
quite happy to work anywhere from the first team to the under-12s, he says,
just to keep his eye in. "I went to see Arsène [Wenger] a couple of times,"
Adams says. "He put Steve [Bould] and Neil Banfield up there; fine, that's
his decision, he is the boss. I said to the board, 'Do you want me to advise
or talk to you?' I have got a statue outside! And they have not responded.
I'm kind of cool with it. I know how this game works. It is bonkers. I feel
like I'm doing an 11-year apprenticeship [as a manager]. It's OK, it's
finding my part in it. I have stopped looking, full stop. I live my life a
day at a time anyway and whatever comes up I do. Be careful what you pray
for. I have got a great job."
Although Adams is outspoken on the state of the modern Arsenal team – "a
million miles away", he says, from competing for trophies – he does so as
the man who won, among other trophies, four league titles at the club over
almost two decades. As an Arsenal captain whom Sir Alex Ferguson once tried
to sign, he is instructive on the sale of Robin van Persie, whom Adams counts
as a personal friend, to United.
"I thought they should have retained him. With 18 months on his deal to go
you say to Robin, 'There's a five-year contract, bang, I'm going to build a
team around you'. Robin would have snapped their hands off. It would have
doubled his wages at that time. He questioned their ambition and kept
questioning them and they kept selling.
"In 1991, Bryan Robson came up to me at an England get-together and said, '£
90,000-a-year to join United'. I said, 'I'm a London lad, I'm happy'. I
turned down a pay rise of 15 grand, which was an absolute fortune in those
days. In 1996 Alex Ferguson came knocking again.
"In 1996, I had just sobered up. I had a meeting with David Dein and Ken
Friar and said, 'What are we doing [at Arsenal]?' They said, 'We're going for
it. Danny Fiszman has invested £50m.' We bought David Platt, Dennis
Bergkamp; then Arsène came in, then the French guys and I got the best
contract of my career. It went from £300,000 up to £1m and I thought, 'Oh
my god, I'll stay! We're going to try to win the league.'
"It is not a small wage bill [at Arsenal], it's £143m. I think they can
restructure it and give the big boys a lot more and not put so many of the
middle order ones on 50 grand a week. They could have put four or five on the
top money. If they had done, I would have been positive that Robin would
still be an Arsenal player.
"I like Arsenal's standards. No person is bigger than the club. I agree with
that 100 per cent. But that's not the issue. Even going back to Ashley Cole,
Sol Campbell – these players left too early. So too Gaël Clichy, Samir
Nasri, Cesc Fabregas, Alex Song, even Marc Overmars and Emmanuel Petit. I
think you could have got two or three years out of them. Instead [with the
exception of Campbell] they chose to take the money. Which was fine, I
understand balancing books.
"But Robin is not a football nor a financial decision. He will get the money
back for you. If you drop out of the Champions League, you aren't going to
get the £25m. Give that to Robin. And the manager is paying himself a few
quid. That is what irritates the fans as well. Ivan [Gazidis, chief
executive] is on a lot of money, Arsène is on a lot of money. The fans come
to watch the players and think 'Hold on a minute, give him your money!'
"I can see both ways. I understand the core values of Arsenal. I just think
there is a way of doing it where you can keep your better players and
challenge for the league."
It would be a mistake to characterise Adams as dismissive of Wenger. He
enthuses about the "physiological" knowledge of his former manager, and the
effect it had on his career. He points out that Wenger still takes training
every day. "We have all got strengths and weaknesses. Arsène said that to me
15 years ago."
He does not think that the next Arsenal manager, when the day comes, will be
responsible for so much. "He kind of runs everything," Adams says; "I think
it'll be a head coach next time."
With last Sunday's home defeat to Manchester City in mind, and Laurent
Koscielny's disastrous red card on nine minutes, it is interesting to hear
Adams's thoughts on the current defence. They face Chelsea at Stamford Bridge
tomorrow and while the home side are undoubtedly brittle, it is equally the
case that Arsenal's back four is prone to wobbling.
"I don't agree with the way he rotates his central defenders," Adams says.
"It's an area of the pitch [where] you need familiarity. This is the argument
I would have with him. His full-backs are too offensive. It's OK if you have
someone in central midfield who can play centre-half. They got destroyed by
AC Milan [4-0 away from home in the Champions League first knockout round] by
balls into the channels. If you've got a Patrick [Vieira] or Manu [Petit] to
drop in and play central defence it's different.
"This game is about players and they [Arsenal] haven't got the players. I
would have loved Vincent Kompany. I think he is exceptional. He was the best
defender in the league last year and before that Rio Ferdinand and [Nemanja]
Vidic have been great. I am a big fan of Jonny Evans.
"I will say, year in, year out, the team with the best defence wins the
league. You have to be resilient and last year Manchester City with Vincent –
he was the best. They have had a few problems early in the season but Pablo
Zabaleta has had a good season. Gaël Clichy has improved. All of a sudden
they are getting better.
"Hopefully Arsène is giving Steve [Bould] access [to the defence] because
Steve knows how to do it. He played with me under George Graham. I don't see
why, given time and access, Steve can't make a significant improvement. I do
worry about how Arsène rotates them.
"If I was playing alongside Steve one week and then Martin Keown, I could
cope but it's different. Per Mertesacker is a zonal defender and Koscielny is
a man-to-man marker. They do different things. In front, Mikel Arteta is
trying to the best of his ability, but in his mind he is not defensive."
What will the legacy be for Wenger if his time in charge of Arsenal ends
without further success? "Arsène will do what Arsène wants to do," Adams
says. "I played with him for six years, I have met him a few times. The more
I get to know him the less I know him. I haven't got a clue how that man
thinks, or how he works. He is a difficult man to fathom."
Adams is sympathetic to the challenges Arsenal face in the new order of
English football, but he foresees problems. "The board see profits and it's
got to the stage where the fans see no trophies. There is a balance; it is
difficult, don't get me wrong. But they have to try to do it. The board, the
owner and Arsène's job is to structure it in a way where you keep your best
players, they are on good salaries and you are going for trophies. Because
they are a million miles away at the moment."
My other life
I ski. Me, the wife and kids go to Val d'Isère. They are all better than me.
I have an ESF [Ecole du Ski Français] English-speaking instructor. We have a
hot chocolate and a bit of lunch then we ski down. It's very calm. I saw Kiss
Me Kate with the mother-in-law. I'm going to see the film version of Les Mis
next week. I walk the dog. That enough?
'Hansen has never put his head on the block. I don't respect him'
His managerial career has not taken off in the same way as his playing
career, but Tony Adams says that – the occasional Goals on Sunday appearance
aside – he could never join the ranks of television pundits.
Adams, 46, was the Wycombe Wanderers manager between 2003 and 2004. He took
over after Harry Redknapp left Portsmouth in 2008 and was sacked by the club,
by then in freefall, after two wins in 16 Premier League games. Now adviser
to the president of the Azerbaijan club Gabala FC, where he previously
managed, he is setting up the infrastructure of the club.
"When I first retired I had my dad in the back of my head saying, 'This is
too easy, you can't do this, get a proper job. You cannot be a Gary Neville
or an Alan Hansen. You can't be a journalist! Go out at 5am and come back at
12 at night'.
"I thought it was money for old rope. I had been a player who had always put
my neck on the line and my whole career was about giving 100 per cent. I
found it was too easy."
Between jobs, Adams has worked as a coach at both Feyenoord and Utrecht, and
is a friend of Wim Jansen, the former Feyenoord technical director and Dutch
international. He left Gabala, only founded in 2005, with the team sixth in
the Azerbaijan Premier League, on the basis he would be better suited working
on developing the club as a whole.
Adams said: "I saw Alan Hansen the other night on Match of the Day and he was
doing a piece about Aston Villa's young defence. It's irrelevant. He thought,
'I'll pick on their ages'. I lifted a trophy at Arsenal at 21. If you are 21
and you are good enough, it doesn't matter. He just picked a theme – ages.
Next week it'll be another theme – too old, or they have two left-footers.
But if you are a coach, like Paul Lambert, and you are actually working with
these guys, sometimes you have people who are sick or injured or don't get
on. There are many factors in the equation. People who haven't done it, I
have no respect for.
"I don't respect Alan because he has never put his head on the block. For me
to then turn around and do it [punditry] in the early days would have felt
very hypocritical."
As a manager, Adams says he would like a job where he had a chance of winning
trophies. "I have had limited resources at all the clubs – at Portsmouth we
had a lot of cash at one stage where we could bring some good players in and
I really enjoyed being part of the FA Cup win [in 2008]. I never got my head
around trying to stay in the division. It feels so foreign."
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1996年9月28日,當Fugees的歌排在流行歌曲的榜首時,阿森.溫格來到阿森納。
THX Gunnfather Arsenel Wenger
「無論你是否準備好,我已經來到,你無法躲藏,我一定要找到你,並讓你離不開我」
by asn14
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