A nybody familiar with the philosophy and work of Arsene Wenger would be pretty certain that a sentence beginning with the words "In a World Cup year" would enrage him.

Wenger is not planning for the World Cup. As a football purist, Wenger finds the carnival of football something of a distraction. He is not sure how he is supposed to applaud the honest but unimaginative efforts of, say, Slovenia or North Korea, especially as it directly interferes with the amount of time he has to feed his players broccoli and teach them the game as he understands it.

He may throw out a mischievous "of course" when asked, as he will be, if England can win it. He doesn't have many England players so their melancholia and failure rarely concerns him. In fact, it can undermine his opponents in England who tend to have to counsel England's players through these disappointments so Wenger, in different circumstances, might have welcomed the impending hysteria.

But he does now have Theo Walcott. This time last year, Theo Walcott was "the best player in the world right now" after scoring a hat-trick against Croatia. Wenger had to handle Walcott then and he has to handle Walcott now.

Last week Wenger was asked about Walcott "in a World Cup year" and the motivation he has to be fit for the finals in June.

"For fuck's sake, the World Cup is in June," he pointed out, quite sensibly. "Is he on holiday until June 9? You cannot be serious? He's paid by Arsenal every week to perform. And well paid. Why should I, today, worry for what will happen on 9 June at the World Cup? He doesn't even know if he will go to the World Cup."

There was a bit more swearing and a bit more talk about the irrelevancy of England in June to Wenger, Arsenal and Theo Walcott himself before the point was taken.

The strangeness of the behaviour in English football's most cerebral man was startling. It was like walking into an early house and finding David Niven standing there, clutching a pint while shouting at the barman to turn up the volume as Dirty Harry is on the television.

Wenger is committed to his philosophy and it is a philosophy that doesn't find much love in it for the idea that everybody should be getting excited about England's World Cup prospects, especially in November and especially after his side has just lost to Sunderland.

Wenger is a man under pressure, a man on the tightrope between genius and madness and the last thing he needs right now is some juvenile giddiness about England's World Cup chances. If he wants juvenile giddiness, he only has to watch Walcott play.

For years Wenger has been asked why he didn't play more English players, castigated at first when he couldn't find one for his first XI. Then he produced Ashley Cole and David Bentley and people began to understand.

Wenger's search for technical perfection also demands an attitude he has seen too often distorted in the English player. Cole lost it when Arsenal wouldn't increase his 50 grand a week wages by another five while Bentley is handicapped by his nickname 'Becks' and his belief that he was entitled to all that goes with it.

Bentley rifled in the eighth goal during Tottenham's facile win against Wigan last week, catching the eye during the period of play that can be filed under 'They're all heroes now.' Wenger is probably not regretting his decision to let him go.

In Walcott, he has a different type of personality which may explain his anger. Walcott is diffident and polite but that might be enough, even though it's probably not what's required either.

He is entitled to believe that Walcott has a chance but Wenger is more concerned that Arsenal have one. He will have noted the contents of the email sent by John Terry's advisers, describing him as one of the world's "most influencial (sic) people" and touting his availability for promotions "in a World Cup year". Wenger, not for the first time, will have wondered why he is the one being driven crazy.

He found an ally in the increasingly eccentric and excellent Gary Neville, who delivered some home truths to just about everyone last week but only made the headlines for some measured and honest criticisms of Liverpool.

My admiration for Neville increased recently when I found his appearance on Rio Ferdinand's demonic wind-up show (that was also to commemorate a World Cup year) on YouTube. Neville was set up by a man dressed as a policeman and the climax of the gag involved the bent copper offering to forget about the six points on Neville's licence if he just posed for a picture. At which point Neville said he'd rather take the six points, he wasn't going to be blackmailed. They cut away to Rio who was laughing maniacally at this point, although, it seemed to me, that Neville had just undermined his gag.

He has always been the shop steward but as his career comes to an end Neville seems to be finding more time for his leftfield views, writing off England's World Cup chances and criticising footballers who "can't even buy a fridge" without their agent's help.

He is right, of course. I knew of one top, top, top, top, top player who was always losing mobile phones. Once, he was in the company of an acquaintance of mine, when he lost another one and he swore in the Arsene Wenger fashion before saying, "that's another 900 quid down the drain."

His agent, of course, was in charge of buying the phones. Football doesn't need a World Cup to deal in inflationary sums.

theweek@me.com

Sunday Independent