Two Wits Woo

Roy Hodgson shares many traits with Arsene Wenger, and in recent weeks they’ve articulated remarkably similar footballing world-views.

They both suggest a scholarly erudition, a measured and methodological manner informed, one imagines, by daunting text books and technical seminars. Worldly-wise and reasoned, they could both be distinguished emeritus professors crafting one last thesis.

Wenger is more prone to acidity when wronged, more likely to give rise to the withering rejoinder or wounded retort; Hodgson appears more forgiving.

Nevertheless, it’s fairly easy to imagine either as an owl.

Hodgson’s pledge to the considered, long-term, approach (see previous post), was echoed by Wenger recently:

“We have to rise above the pressure and the expectation levels and be guided more by what we want to achieve and how we want to play football than by people who want perfection immediately. I stick to what I believe is right. You have moments that go well and those that go less well. You are not God when everyone says you are, and you are not miserable when everyone says you are. The truth is somewhere in between."

This Saturday, Hodgson’s worthy purism will compete with the bullish pragmatism and elusive alchemy of Harry Redknapp - peddler of his own indisputable, but more ragged, wisdom. Will the curtain be pulled back to reveal a cardboard conjuror reciting empty spells, or will the Spurs Manager’s messianic aura amplify?

And, if undone, will the Fulham Manager remain tied to his philosophy?