Arsene Wenger is best of this era but Brian Clough’s cup coup still stands out

THE LAST WORD: Michael Calvin's final Independent on Sunday column

Brian Clough won two European Cups with Nottingham Forest (Getty)

In the beginning was the word, and the word was with Brian Clough. He was alone by the carousel in baggage reclaim at East Berlin’s Schönefeld airport, and surveyed me with the quiet exasperation he reserved for his dog Del Boy.

Young reporters spoke to football managers informally then, instead of playing hide and seek in adversarial press conferences. As a newcomer, tradition dictated I introduce myself. Rarely, in the 35 years since, have I been more nervous.

“Eh, big ‘un” he said, that familiar confliction of North-east and East Midlands accents sounding surprisingly soft, since it often had the impact of a pneumatic drill . “Word of advice. Don’t be a shithouse. Word’ll get around. Now, what can I do for you?”

Clough played the press like Handel played the harpsichord. When, later that year, Nottingham Forest had retained the European Cup, he caused chaos at Madrid airport by insisting the hack pack pose for a team photograph with him and the trophy on the tarmac.

The cult of the football manager had been born. In those days of relative innocence we did not realise the slavering monster it would become. Judged by appearances, football is now played, not by two teams of 11 men, but by two Emperors in a Mad Max Thunderdome.

A random collection of this week’s headlines tell the story of the personalisation of victory, or more pertinently, defeat: Klopp 3, Flop 1. Farce’n Wenger. Pell’s Hell. Big Sam Over Rafa Row. Pep Fear on Jose Utd link. I Will Know When to Go.

The irony is that in an era of unprecedented prominence, managers have never been more resistant to anything other than superficial scrutiny. They cannot be blamed for refusing to embrace the madness of recycled ignorance and clickbait contempt.

Who are they? How will they be remembered? If we have few concrete clues about the answer to the first question, we can at least hazard an educated guess at the second.

Today’s Manchester derby will almost certainly be Louis Van Gaal’s last, since the Great Subplot dictates next season the occasion will be dominated by the mythology of Pep Guardiola and the mischief of United’s latest shop-soiled saviour, Jose Mourinho.

United has been a job too far for Van Gaal, who increasingly resembles a distracted grandad aghast at the aphids in his greenhouse. He will leave with markedly less dignity than Manuel Pellegrini, who has appeared semi-detached since his arrival at City three years ago.

The Chilean is the antithesis of a dynastic manager. He has no wish to match the emotional commitment of a Sir Alex Ferguson or the idealism of an Arsène Wenger. His is an instantly transferable talent which does not require the luxury of strategy or sentimentality.

Ferguson’s carefully calculated departure has been complicated immeasurably by his unwillingness to, well, depart. Shots of the former manager’s displeasure, as he sits in the stands at Old Trafford, are among the most revealing portraits since Dorian Gray posed for a full-length oil painting.

Ferguson will be remembered as a compulsive winner, but for my money, Wenger has been the best, most influential manager of the modern era. His job has involved managing change, and all the hypocrisy which comes with that. In a world where incoherence is routinely hailed as innovation, he has been a true visionary.

Time, and the accelerating pace of that change, catches up with them all though. Wenger seems lost in a fog of stagnation, unable or unwilling to grasp the reality that his definitive strengths, prudence and tactical purity, will ultimately be condemned as conclusive weaknesses.

With the benefit of hindsight, the neutral’s unwavering ally, it would have been better for all concerned had he taken advantage of last May’s FA Cup win to signal his intention to leave this summer. That would have enabled Arsenal to quietly facilitate the arrival of his most natural successor, Guardiola.

Instead, succession planning is complicated. Jürgen Klopp may have jumped a little too early, though he is the perfect fit for a club of Liverpool’s emotional extremes. To regain their edge, Arsenal must be as bold as they were 20 years ago, when an unheralded Wenger was recruited from Japan.

British coaches are chronically unfashionable, but having the foresight and courage to skip a generation and appoint a young technocratic manager like Eddie Howe would marry adventure and long-term ambition. It would also quieten popular resistance to the grey, vapid men in the boardroom.

Management is a young man’s game. Guardiola wants to be out by the time he is 50. Mourinho’s truculence and unchallenged egotism destroyed Chelsea’s season and suggested he was burned out. Despite his sly self-confidence, the suspicion persists his best days are behind him.

Coming men are relatively simple to identify. Unai Emery at Seville has the energy, eye for detail and inquisitiveness required in the golden playpen of the Premier League. Thomas Tuchel’s forthcoming meeting with his mentor, Klopp, in the Europa League quarter-finals will focus attention on his shrewd development of an impressive inheritance at Borussia Dortmund.

International managers may be distanced from the screaming skulls of the club game, but they face familiar themes of discord, disinformation and legacy. The cartoonish frenzy of the England job emphasises hidden flaws, latent eccentricities and failings which really should have been identified in the recruitment process.

Even Bobby Robson, my favourite England manager, had his moments of teeth-sucking fury. Roy Hodgson dwarfs his most immediate predecessors, who were over-promoted or overpaid, but will be judged harshly if he is conservative in his approach to this summer’s European Championship finals.

Clough went to his grave bemoaning the injustice of being denied a chance to manage his country. He would have loved the impudence of Dele Alli and the yeoman qualities of Harry Kane. To answer the pressing question of the moment: yes, winning two European Cups with a provincial club like Forest has greater resonance than the Leicester fairytale.

To use one of his most endearing phrases, goodnight and God bless.