In his new role as FIFA Chief of Global Football Development, Arsene Wenger was talking about Mikel Arteta. And about Arsenal, in general.
Apparently, what Arteta has to realise, first and foremost, is that he will be managing a club ‘built on special values’.
Ah, the old special values line. It is up there with tradition, history, culture and philosophy, as if there is some deep, meaningful, utterly intangible reason why a football club is successful.
We have got it at Liverpool right now. In abundance. The whole ‘This Means More’ nonsense.
It is commercial rubbish.
Liverpool are not enjoying relative success because football means any more to that particular club than it does to any other.
They are enjoying it because they have Sadio Mane, Roberto Firmino and Mohamed Salah up front, Virgil van Dijk at the back and Alisson between the sticks.
That is £250million - don’t forget, this also costs more - brilliantly invested.
Due diligence done on character, great analysis of the qualities they would bring to the team, in both a technical and personal sense.
Liverpool are not enjoying relative success because football means any more to that particular club than it does to any other.
They are enjoying it because they employed a fantastic manager in Jurgen Klopp - a brilliant coach, an inspirational leader, arch man-motivator, takes no nonsense from anyone.
Can you imagine Klopp putting up with any of the shenanigans that have come from Arsenal players over the past few years?
Sulking in training? Senior players berating younger players on the park? Players dawdling off when substituted when their team was behind?
Relatives making snide comments on social media? Star signings parading around town in chrome Lamborghinis?
Those things are not an affront to special values, they are an affront to basic values.
Arteta, when his appointment is formalised, does not need to remind Arsenal players of special values, he needs to remind them of basic values.
And despite some reservations, he might well be the man to do it.
Although his input into Manchester City’s domestic domination has no doubt been valued, you suspect Guardiola does not see him as irreplaceable.
At City, there is, probably, Pep and those who put out the cones.
Yet speak to anyone in the game and Arteta is highly-regarded when it comes to coaching and managerial promise.
But if you want to know the scale of the job facing Arteta, consider this.
From the outside, looking at the Arsenal team of this season, certainly of the last couple of months, there is not a single player who you could make a case for as being unsellable.
Not one is indispensable. Not a single one.
That is the size of Arteta’s task.
Those who recruited these players have to take the blame but now it is over to Arteta.
For all the talk of how the analysts, the directors of football, the geeks with laptops, are crucial to a club’s success, the manager should run the show.
Klopp does at Liverpool, Pep Guardiola does at Manchester City. And that’s what Arteta, for all his inexperience, should be allowed to do at Arsenal.
Never mind special values. Special players and a special manager are the only keys to success.
