Battle of the Bosses: Tony Adams to replace Arsene Wenger?

Football is cyclical. Arsene Wenger’s arrival at Arsenal in 1996 marked the beginning of the end for English football’s Proper Football Men. The Frenchman modernised the sport in the country, moving it away from the out-dated punt and pint culture. So it was fitting that a man steeped in this culture should provide Wenger with the nadir of his Arsenal career to date.

Sam Allardryce is the anti-Wenger. He’s a manager for the Brexit age, with his tactics just as crude as those used by the ‘Leave’ campaign. Despite their crudeness, Wenger, just like the ‘Remain’ camp, couldn’t handle them, with Crystal Palace not so much parking a bus with a gigantic false campaign promise on it, but ploughing it through the Arsenal defence.

If Allardyce is now the embodiment of the zeitgeist perhaps Arsenal should look for their own variation to replace Wenger. What’s Tony Adams up to these days?

"No." That was Wenger’s one word, one syllable response to Geoff Shreeve’s prod for more detail on the Arsenal manager’s future. If only he’d followed up that “no” with “new contract” and he might have appeased the Gooners who had just seen their team dispatched by relegation-threatened Crystal Palace.

Instead, speculation continues to swirl around Wenger, dragging down Arsenal as a club in the process. Whatever happens, whether Wenger stays or goes, you can count on an Arsenal Fan TV live broadcast outside the Emirates for the announcement. They’ve already started scripting their rants.

Jose Mourinho’s playground bully act has been difficult to watch at times. First it was Henrikh Mkhitaryan, squeezing the Armenian’s juice box until it burst. Then it was Luke Shaw, shaking all the lunch money from the full-back’s pockets. On the basis of the weekend win over Sunderland though, Mourinho’s bully-boy tactics have worked.

Both Mkhitaryan and Shaw turned in their best displays of the season at the Stadium of Light, with Manchester United running out 3-0 winners to keep alive their slim hopes of finishing in the top four. Mourinho has always been one for mind games, but at this rate his next move will see him give a member of his squad a wedgie.

David Moyes must have felt aggrieved after referee Craig Pawson’s decision to send off Sebastian Larsson, but for once he managed not to threaten someone with a “wee slap.” The red card shown to the Swede for a tackle on United's Ander Herrera was harsh, but the Scot reined it in, presumably after the threat of a wee slap from Sunderland’s press officer.

What’s the point anyway? After years of escaping relegation the Black Cats have run out of lives, with Moyes’ stock lower than ever before. How much further can the Scot fall? Well, at least as far as the Championship.

Wenger has made this section his own in 2017. He’s been so horrible that even Colin Farrell’s character from the film ‘Horrible Bosses’ would have done a better job of coaching Arsenal this season than the Frenchman.

Conventional wisdom says he can’t surely survive beyond the end of the season, but he will. He always does. The only way Wenger is leaving the Arsenal hot seat is if he’s ‘re-accommodated’ in the same way United Airlines do on overbooked flights.

Harry Kane’s injury should have derailed Spurs’ belated title challenge. Without their top scorer and frontman they would surely falter. At least, common logic suggested this would be the case. Instead, Mauricio Pochettino’s side have won four straight games since Kane’s injury, scoring 11, including four in Saturday’s dismantling of Watford.

Spurs have the look of a team on the rise, although with seven points still to bridge between second place and top spot time is running out for them to rise above Chelsea. Nonetheless, Pochettino is once again showing himself to be among football’s very best, although Paul Merson probably still thinks Gary Rowett would do a better job.

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