Arrogance

Below is my response to a Blogfc post which did not post due to the blog's anti-spam protocols:

"Odd to hear Clough arrogantly dismissing Wenger's arrogance. I don't think that Wenger would
have won more if his players had behaved any differently. Each top-flight, championship winning
team has it's own optimal personality which enables it to win. Frown upon Arsenal and Wenger
if you will but the fact is that they have won trophies and looked very good doing it. Some
beautiful football. Clough's teams won too but he admits their good behaviour was scripted.

Disingenuous good behaviour.

I don't like it.

While Arsenal is not "my" club, it seems to me that Wenger gives his players the opportunity
to be human and what's more aims to play good football. I wonder how Clough's players have
felt about him? Or how do Mourinho's and Ferguson's players feel about their managers? I am
suspicious of Clough. Using the critieria of conformity and oppression of human emotion,
Clough tars a man whose arrogance may be grounded in the great struggle to produce
winning teams that play attractive football.

Wenger can't win popularity contests if dinosaurs like Clough are creating the standards of
judgement. Just how many times do players have to attack Patrick Veira in the middle of the
park or in a tunnel? That kind of treatment is reserved only for the greats of the game. Clough
would probably be ok with that kind of play as long as his players don't curse at the referee
or lose their cool. Hack down your man and look noble after you do it.

It would be interesting to see what Clough has to say about Mourihno. More of a bad taste
in his mouth?

Again, there is something I don't like about this. About what Clough may really be about.

We see this type of situation in life, out of the football realm as well, where bad guys pay
lip-service to propriety, say all the right things and are in the meantime, in the background
committing their own improprieties, violations and attrocities.

I don't know if Clough is one of those bad guys. But I'm more certain that Wenger is not.
A team that attempts to play that kind of football is atleast striving for goodness and beauty.
And that is what I call noble behaviour...