El Splashico!
Vieira v Henry as Invincibles clash on the Med
It is Monaco against Nice in Ligue 1 on Friday in Monte Carlo, where, if truth be told, the only sport the locals are truly passionate about is tax avoidance. In France, it is known as the Mediterranean derby – El Splashico – although for the two managers involved, great French internationals and giants of the English game, this will be serious, no matter how small the crowd at the Stade Louis II.
Thierry Henry and Patrick Vieira changed the way English football thought about the game when they arrived in the Nineties, coming as they did with a set of abilities and natural physical advantages that made them feel at times like superheroes. It would be fair to say that they have found management more of a challenge, and certainly Henry who was appointed by his former club in October and now a record of six defeats, two draws and just one win in the league and Europe.
It has been a blisteringly quick process of assimilation for him, and unsurprisingly there have already been a few arguments, including at a press conference after the 1-0 defeat away to Stade Reims on Nov 3. The issue at stake was the number of shots on target his team had over the course of a fairly risible match – the journalist said it was one, Henry two – although what difference that made to the bigger picture was hard to see.
Being appointed in June meant Vieira had the benefit of input into the transfer window and a preseason, and after a slow start, including the delayed return of Mario Balotelli, overweight and eager to leave, Vieira has been much more successful. Before this weekend, Nice were seventh, on a run of four wins. Vieira has been much more accessible to the local press, which has helped him to explain his methods. Even as one whose most recent career was in the media, Henry has tended to be more isolated – press conferences aside.
Monaco have suffered major injury problems, to the extent that their manager brought a document listing his absentees to his press conference before the win over Caen on Nov 24. At various times he has been without Croatia’s World Cup goalkeeper Danijel Subasic; striker Stevan Jovetic; attacker Rony Lopes; and the great veteran striker Radamel Falcao. Henry has given opportunities to younger players, including this week Lillian Thuram’s 17-year-old son Khephren – although the emergence of youngsters is among the few highlights so far.
The key point of a first job in management, a wise man once said, is to emerge with enough of one’s reputation intact to secure a second job in management. Vieira did that at New York City where the team’s improvement was substantial, and there was no reason to suggest that he could not go on to a bigger job elsewhere. There will always be owners and chairman eager to employ big-name players, while wary of the reasons they should not.
It is a lesson worth noting for Sol Campbell, another of that Arsenal era, that the fewer eccentricities in his early years the better the chances of a second job after Macclesfield Town. The likelihood is that Campbell will not conjure miracles at a club who are already struggling, but if he can keep his head and make solid decisions when the squad’s wages are paid late or his best player gets sold to Salford City, then he will have shown his potential. That is not to say he should curb his strong opinions on the game, which he must always call as he sees.
Can the greats of that era let go of the careers they have behind them and embrace a new identity? No harm in entertaining their players occasionally with a little story about a famous title race, or what Sir Alex really said to Arsene that time. But essentially football management is like parenting, placing oneself second in order that another can flourish, accepting that there is a more important person in the room – and for the game’s most successful players, that can be difficult to do.
Vieira seems to have so far managed the transition, having had experience with the youngsters in Manchester City’s elite development squad. Henry is a little further behind, still picking fights with his critics that he does not need, still stuck in the role of Thierry Henry, the near-perfect goal-machine of the Noughties, rather than Thierry Henry, the manager. The consensus is he tends to analyse his players’ mistakes in post-match press conferences as if he was in the Sky Sports studio – and as if all this was happening to someone else.
No one who knows Henry and Vieira would say they are particularly good friends, although they have as much in common now as they ever did. Every manager gets sacked, even the good ones – and sometimes more than once.
There is a growing acceptance, however, that it is a necessary part of the learning process, and that one dismissal does not make a failure. Monaco have had eight managers since the turn of the millennium, and Nice 10. Macclesfield Town’s John Askey, the promotion-winning manager last season, was a playing legend at the club, but he could not leave soon enough this summer, and Campbell may wish to find out why at some point.
All three of these Arsenal greats, including the two rookie managers, will find the going tough. Mistakes will be made. But what they are trying to demonstrate is that they have shrugged off the necessary selfishness that comes with being a great footballer and have pivoted to use that reputation and experience in another way, for the benefit of their players. It is not as easy as it sounds.
More than one version of history
‘It was bordering on out of control,” is how Dave Kitson recalls the week leading up to Stoke City’s game against Arsenal in 2010 when Ryan Shawcross infamously broke Aaron Ramsey’s leg. He paints a picture of a team whipped into a towering aggression by Tony Pulis, and a culture around the way they played that took them into a zone where bad things could happen.
It was a horrible injury to a talented player. It should be said that others recall Pulis at Stoke differently. They accept that he was a hard manager but that the atmosphere which Kitson alleges is misleading. As for Pulis and Arsene Wenger, they had their rivalry, but were later friendly enough that the latter made a major donation to Pulis’s fundraising efforts for the Donna Louise Hospice.
Kitson arrived at the club as a £5.5million record signing in 2008 and never got on with Pulis.
In March 2009, a year before the Ramsey injury, Kitson – already out of favour in his first season – described Pulis as a “very interesting and forthright and a decent bloke”. “I’d have a beer with him any day of the week”. At the very least it shows it is possible to remember a certain era in many different ways.
Henry is still stuck in the role of nearperfect goal machine of the Noughties