If Mikel Arteta’s dossier is part of a deliberate strategy, it is a dangerous one for Arsenal | Jonathan Wilson

The manager is not yet in Alex Ferguson and José Mourinho’s league, but his conspiracy theories have reached new levels

English football loves the word “dossier”. It doesn’t love dossiers themselves, of course; they’re for nerds – unless, that is, they’re a “secret dossier”, which have a thrilling redolence of spy dramas, invisible ink and dead drops. Non-secret dossiers, though, are inherently risible: call something a “dossier” in English football and you’re immediately signalling: this is absurd poindextering. Dossiers were preposterous when Don Revie was – imagine the pretension! – drawing up scouting reports on opposing players, and they are preposterous today as Mikel Arteta collates images of rival managers stepping outside their technical area.