Paul Merson has named Harry Redknapp as ‘tactically better’ than Arsenal legend Arsene Wenger, having played under the guide of both.
The former midfielder is known for coming out with absurd comments, as well as predicting our side to falter on the regular, and I can’t help but feel somewhat offended by his latest comments.
Merson has tried to claim that former Tottenham manager Harry Redknapp was ‘technically better’ than Wenger, adding that the English boss was the ‘best man-manager I’ve ever worked under’.
“One hundred per cent, best man-manager I’ve ever worked under, by a million miles,” Merson told Sky Sports.
“As a man-manager knowing what you want or what you need, you could tell him what you need, he wouldn’t tell you what you needed. I think that was a massive thing with him.
“The thing with Harry, people think, ‘Oh, he’s a wheeler-dealer’ […] his knowledge of football is second to none.
“I honestly think he’s tactically better than Arsene Wenger, in my opinion. I worked under both.
“Tactically, if I know a manager who wants to set up, make sure we don’t lose a game and stop the other team playing… for me, Harry is the man.
“He’s with George Graham, that sort of [level]. Arsene Wenger, he had some unbelievable players.
“When you’ve got Thierry Henry, Dennis Bergkamp, [Robert] Pires, [Patrick] Vieira, [Emmanuel] Petit, [Marc] Overmars and [Freddie] Ljungberg… if I’m the manager of Arsenal, I’m opening the football match up!
“I want the game to expand, to go end-to-end because if it does, there’s only one winner. That’s Arsenal because of the players I just reeled off.
“But when you’ve got a manager who hasn’t got that quality of player and you’ve got to set up, that’s why I think Harry is a phenomenal manager.
“He put a team together, he pulled players into certain positions and it clicked. I played in a phenomenal football team.”
It’s hard to know where to start with this, but Merson really needs to hold more of that verbal diarrhoea inside.
Wenger didn’t the best team of players, nor did we have close to the squad limits or personnel of Manchester United in most years, but that didn’t stop him from guiding us to glory, and the fact that he denied any single team a win against us for an entire season shows he had the tactical nouse to counter-act what any team brought, as well as being able to change things mid-game.
I’m not even sure that Wenger needs defending as his record speaks for itself…
Did Wenger lack in any areas? To be fair I remember getting frustrated in the later years when we had to wait at least an hour before a substitution would ever be made…
Patrick
