This month marks the tenth anniversary of Arsène Wenger’s tenure as Arsenal manager. So many superlatives that have been attached to the Frenchman over that time: intelligent, successful, innovative, articulate, urbane, stylish, sophisticated, frugal, amusing and above all passionate about Arsenal. Critics have had a few choice things to say about the man from Alsace, some of it justified like his famous myopia (which has actually not been seen, excuse the pun, for the last two seasons) and that of “voyeur” from a certain poser in southwest London which is far from the truth. But I think it would be very hard to find a true Arsenal fan who didn’t feel that this manager has had the single biggest impact on the club in its long history, and that because of him Arsenal are in a far better state than when he first took over in September 1996. Summing up, in Ten Commandments, what Wenger’s reign at Arsenal has been all about is a bit like trying to outbid Chelsea for a player, but here is my attempt: 1. Thou shall not drink. One of the first things Wenger changed at the Club was the drinking culture that permeated Highbury. But under this commandment must also come his introduction of diets and training routines that were specifically designed to help a player play better football. His methods were considered revolutionary at the time, but soon became the norm in the Premiership.

2. Thou shall not spend big. There have been exceptions, Sylvain Wiltord at £12 million was Wenger’s biggest purchase until that of Jose Antonio Reyes which would have reached £16.5 million had we won every Premiership title and the Champions League since his arrival. But on the whole Wenger spends the Club’s money like it was his own. It has averaged out as a net spend of under £5m per season, which is less than what most Premiership managers spend who get their team’s relegated.

3. Thou shall not play route one football. Wenger is a football idealist and he has steadfastly refused to budge from his vision of how the game is played. It has earned him and the Club universal praise for the style in which his teams play but it has recently been exposed as vulnerable to the type of football that made Wimbledon such a handful in their heyday. Nevertheless, three Premiership titles, four FA Cups and a Champions League final coupled with never finishing outside the Champions League places in the league more than suggests the odd loss at the Reebok can be accommodated.

4. Thou shall not see controversial incidents. For years, especially when our ability to get a referee to pull out his red card, was at its highest Wenger’s favoured method for avoiding a public criticism of his players was to claim he hadn’t seen the incident. For a while it worked, but all good things come to an end and his claim to not seeing an incident involving an Arsenal player while simultaneously being able to dissect in detail what happened with an opposition player lead to the inevitable ridicule.

5. Thou shall not buy British. Slightly tongue in cheek, this one, as Wenger has bought English players but in the main has stuck to cheaper, technically better foreign imports. Having no English players is the criticism that has replaced our disciplinary problem as the media’s favourite piece of mud to throw. Like most Arsenal fans I have absolutely no problem with Wenger’s buying policy, or the fact that there are few Englishmen in the side.

6. Thou shall not love thy neighbour. One of my favourite Wenger quotes was when he admitted falling asleep watching a video of a Sperz match. Whether deliberate or not (and I’ve always thought it was) Wenger has always had the ability to get a dig in on our rivals in an amusing way. In recent years the spats with Sir Alex Ferguson dominated, and his quip about everyone thinks they have the prettiest wife at home was the one I liked the best. More recently, Wenger has turned his attention to the diminutive poser from Stamford Bridge. Apparently it filled a 100 page dossier. What’s the Portuguese for ‘stop talking out of your arse, Jose?’

7. Thou shall not sell to Real Madrid. Ever since we sold Nicolas Anelka to Real Madrid for what still looks like an absolute mint at £23.5m the team from the Bernebeau has tried to snaffle away our players. Failing time and time again in their attempts to sign Patrick Vieira they employed a new tactic: buying all our transfer targets. But as they have discovered with Julio Baptista and Robinho converting talent into superstars requires a footballing alchemist, and you’ve no chance shifting Arsène from London.

8. Thou shall make thy critics eat their words. Ridiculed for the best part of a season when journalists exploited artistic licence to make a comment about not being surprised if his team went an entire league season unbeaten to make it sound like some kind of boast Arsène Wenger then shoved their twisted words back down their throats by doing exactly that the following season.

9. Thou shall be failures in Europe. Technically this stands as we have not won a European trophy under Wenger despite making it to two finals now. For years it was claimed that Wenger was tactically naïve and that he couldn’t cut it in Europe. The run to last year’s final with a group of players so young they had to get permission from their parents for the away trips should have put that one to bed, although going one better in Athens would be nice.

10. Thou will not shoot from outside the box. A new and rather unwanted phenomenon that has developed as a result of the intricate passing game that Wenger is the team’s failure to shoot on goal when a pass is on. It’s another one of those half-criticisms. In reality the team scores masses of goals but it can be very frustrating when we’re a goal down with 15 minutes to play.