THE MANAGERS/Arsene Wenger v Alex Ferguson: Kevin McCarra looks at the fascinating rivalry between two great managers

Pity they don't have weigh-ins for Premiership matches. Surely there would have been eyeballing and insults from Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger even if they are a bit old for rolling around on the floor. These two men are the heavyweights of English football, whose status does not depend solely on the clubs they happen to manage.

They were synonymous with achievement long before Manchester United and Arsenal, respectively, ever put Ferguson and Wenger on the payroll. They are locked together by much more than just the grappling between the sides at Highbury this evening. With honours at stake season after season, two personalities are at odds in a manner rarely seen before in English football.

Until the advent of Wenger, Ferguson had a virtually perfect record when it came to undermining rivals. He admits to being shocked when he saw Kevin Keegan's overwrought reaction to his attempt to provoke a lively performance from Leeds against Newcastle in the 1996 title race. There was even a fleeting sense of guilt, but that emotion will never trouble him in Wenger's case.

The Frenchman not only answers back, but does so in an ironic manner to infuriate. Ferguson would be more at ease with ranting outbursts and, for that very reason, Wenger prefers to be wry. When the United manager claimed a year ago that his team were playing the more attractive football the reaction from Highbury was patronising. "Everyone thinks they have the prettiest wife at home," Wenger said.

Ferguson, in common with every other British manager, has not been used to a challenger with a flair for aphorism. You could idle away hours drafting lists of the contrasts between these individuals, beginning with their childhoods. While Ferguson left school at 16 without sitting his exams and headed for an apprenticeship as a toolmaker, Wenger was clearing all the educational hurdles.

The Arsenal manager went on to a degree in economics at Strasbourg university, but Ferguson's numerical skills had to be honed while keeping a sharp eye on the bar staff of the pubs he once owned in Glasgow. Much as he liked the dockers who were his clientele, he regularly went home cut and bruised from peace-keeping duties.

The careers of Wenger and Ferguson continued to develop in completely different ways. While the United manager dragged the attention of the world to Old Trafford and even, previously, to Aberdeen, his current adversary took himself to the other side of the globe to coach in Japan before he came to the Premiership.

In addition to whatever pidgin Japanese he possesses, Wenger has complemented his native French with German, English, Spanish and Italian. The reverent coverage of these accomplishments has peeved Ferguson. "They say he's an intelligent man, right?" the United manager complained. "Speaks five languages. I've got a 15-year-old from the Ivory Coast who speaks five languages."

Ferguson's target is not so much Wenger himself as the stereotyped comparisons that are made between them. By trading on his image as a dressing-room brawler and screamer, he is partly to blame whenever people underestimate him. All the same, he is a clever person with an unflagging curiosity about a great range of topics. As well as budding wine connoisseurship and hearty efforts to teach himself the piano, Ferguson often has heavyweight biographies as his bedtime reading.

It is actually Wenger who is a creature of routine. By his own admission, the two journeys he undertakes in London are to Highbury and the Arsenal training ground. Otherwise, he seems to confine himself to his Totteridge home, absorbing football matches from a giant television screen.

Like Ferguson, he does have a taste for thought-provoking books and more attention should be paid to the resemblances between them. They echo one another in certain respects and not only because one man was knighted and the other received the Legion d'Honneur. Each is driven by the wish to compensate for undistinguished efforts as a player. They could also have a profitable time discussing their first, unheralded steps in management, with Wenger marginally more privileged by getting his start at Cannes while Ferguson had to familiarise himself with East Stirling.

If they can never really be soulmates, it may be because of vague feelings of class that have no connection with their sporting history. Ferguson takes pride in his Govan background and the ever so slightly aloof Wenger rankles with him. The Frenchman is not so cosmopolitan as to enter into all local customs and although he accepted a glass of wine after the championship-clinching victory at Old Trafford he is not associated with the boot-room camaraderie in which Ferguson was raised.

The United manager rarely sounds so gleeful as when accusing Arsenal of arrogance. It is as if he is sure that he has identified a weak spot. Wenger has had strategic reasons for lauding a side whose members still seem in need of his faith. It has been slow work to convince the squad that they can stand comparison with United every single year. While praising them he has, however, run the risk of looking complacent. Wenger will not be drawn into anything so demeaning as an open feud. Asked if it was unsettling that Ferguson might genuinely dislike him, he replied: "It doesn't really take my sleep away." At heart, Wenger appreciates that each of them ought to honour the other since there are identical, potent forces at work in their lives. Ferguson brings out the mischief in Wenger, but the Arsenal manager knows when the needling has to stop. If there were a deep distaste for an adversary, it would be unprofessional to indulge it. "These are things that do not cross my mind before the game," he said, "because I'm thinking more: I hope Patrick (Vieira) will be all right, that in the first five minutes we will deal with the first corner or the first break they have. I don't think about Alex Ferguson."

If the Scot has Wenger on his mind, it is because he is adapting to a threat that scarcely anyone would have anticipated. At the age of 60, having announced a planned retirement that would then be rescinded, Ferguson found his side was second best.

That could, just possibly, be written off as a bad season at Old Trafford, but if United are trophyless again this year a different conclusion will be drawn.

Ten years ago Ferguson took his side to their first Premiership title. Subsequently, despite interruptions by Blackburn Rovers and Arsenal, the supremacy of United and their manager has been accepted. Very late in his career, though, the challenge to his reputation is fiercer than ever. Arsenal's deeds are much more troubling for Ferguson than Wenger's words.

Guardian Service