There is of course a third option: That of fans vastly overrating their own intelligence.
Printable View
A masters is a signal of a certain type of intelligence, namely academic ability. However, in football you need different sorts of abilities, and it appears that Wenger in the last 6 years has focused far too narrowly on his technocratic ability, at the expense of other qualities needed. Sir Alex, for example, doesn't have a degree and left school with few qualifications. However, his ability to continually get success with United suggests a very strong natural intelligence to continually redevelop and remould Man Utd and keep up with changes in world football (notice how he changed their style of football by getting rid of RVN and bringing in more mobile strikers in 2006, which heralded a new period of success for them). That I believe is a greater sign of intelligence than Wenger.
You simply cannot compare SAF and Wenger. there are far too many variables.
I'd rather have the real world intelligence Wenger has than a nack of getting the best out of a pointless team sport.
Dont care if he has a degree in economics and can speak however many languages
All i care is how he does with Arsenal
So the answer is obviously a no
We're talking tactics and it's a weak area for Wenger. It always has been.
He is intelligent, yes. I, and many others, get that impression he’s intelligent mainly from his past interviews and comments. In post-match interviews, he might say a lot of silly things - which all managers do when they’re frustrated. But in other types of interviews, I find the logic behind what he says very sound. The observations he makes are unique and insightful and something that other managers are not capable of making. And I don’t judge that on his qualifications - there are many rubbish people about with advanced degrees - you shouldn’t judge his intelligence on paper qualifications like that. There’s a distinction to be made between someone being knowledgeable and someone being intelligent. Arsene is both.
People will consider this sort of thing and feel ‘that’s a bit retarded’. And it is retarded. But I would class it more eccentric. I’ve known many people like this who seem like bumbling idiots but are actually very bright.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycpLLINX1BE
The leap that some make that ‘he is no longer successful so he is not intelligent’ is stupid. You don’t need to be a genius to be a successful football manager. I would say, particularly at the highest level where all teams have very talented players, being a top motivator like Mourinho is probably more important.
Is he intelligent?
Yes without a doubt, he's well educated and clearly has gathered a great deal of knowledge over the years.
What he seems to lack is any common sense and an ability to look at a situation based on what is happening, his beliefs and values seem to prevent him from doing what is relatively obvious, this does make him come across as foolish at time, as do some of his words in the press.
I don't think being an academic is a necessity in football management however, there are a number of other skills that play a bigger part in how good a manager is, a eye for talent, ability to motivate, being able to setup your tactics to nullify other teams attacks and being able to organise players and get them playing as a group are just some of them.
What's clear is Wenger lacks some of these important skills.