If, as most Arsenal fans are trying to convince themselves, Ian Wright finally rolls up his sickbed long enough to leave the bench to score the goal that wins the Premiership at Highbury tomorrow, it will be another endorsement of Arsene Wenger's sophisticated, if cunning, managerial style.
Two weeks ago, when Wright looked unlikely to play again this season, Wenger answered a question about his fitness by saying: "If Ian comes back too early and gets another major injury, that will be the end of the World Cup for him."
Wenger, who is often accused of lacing seemingly straightforward sentences with psychological verbal grenades to explode under the Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson, is too intelligent to have used the words loosely; he would have calculated their effect on Wright and the likely response.
Wright's three months of inactivity ended within a week when he volunteered for a reserve match and he has now declared himself fit for tomorrow's visit of Everton to Highbury.
The incident is a telling insight into Wenger's style, a peek up the conjurer's sleeve, if you like, even if our desire to penetrate the secrets of the successful manager will always leave us as frustrated as trying to catch the magician in the act of secreting a dove in his cloak.
There are certain definable traits of the successful manager. We remember the passion of Bill Shankly, the disciplinarianism of Brian Clough, the almost priestly aura of Sir Matt Busby, the work ethic of Ferguson. What they all share with Wenger is that, despite their public personas, behind the dressing-room door they are prepared to listen and learn within the parameters of their immutable tenets.
Thus Wenger, who is so obsessed with diet that he refused to compromise on his orders to Wright to eschew Mars bars and eat grilled broccoli, is happy to meet him halfway on other matters.
Wright, who cannot be the easiest of his Highbury charges, says: "He treats people like adults and gets the best out of them. It doesn't have to be with a whip and a chair. He's like Glenn Hoddle: laid back, composed, relaxed."
Wenger listened, too, when Tony Adams led an animated dressing-room debate after the 3-1 home defeat by Blackburn Rovers in December which appeared to have ended Arsenal's title ambitions. The main thrust of the debate was that Emmanuel Petit and Patrick Vieira were not doing enough to protect the back four, an argument that seems risible now that the pair have responded so brilliantly to their manager's instructions to help in front of the defence more.
Listening to dressing-room complaints while maintaining both the players' respect and one's own authority is the most difficult trick for a manager to pull off. Wenger manages it by fiercely defending his players outside the dressing-room door, even when their behaviour, like Dennis Bergkamp's elbow into the face of West Ham's Steve Lomas, is indefensible. He also delegates disciplinary matters to his assistant, Pat Rice so that he can remain the players' friend.
Just as Wenger tries to be sensitive to each individual's needs, so each player takes something different from the boss. David Platt points to the fact that, like Sven Goran Eriksson, whom he played under in Italy, Wenger likes to spring surprise routines in training so that the players do not become stale or bored.
Ray Parlour, a player lacking in self-confidence, has blossomed under the public praise showered on him by the manager and a gentler response to mistakes. Adams has become so liberated by his new licence to leave the shop unminded while he gallivants upfield that he has started to wonder whether he might have been the English Franz Beckenbauer if he had changed when he was younger.
If Adams was once a donkey, Martin Keown was the original carthorse until his former manager Bruce Rioch encouraged him to pass and Wenger honed it to unrecognisable levels.
If Rioch was the first Arsenal manager to scream "pass, pass" across the training ground, he was also the man to bring in Dennis Bergkamp. Yet it would be hard to disagree with the contention that even Bergkamp has become a better player under Wenger.
Having been seduced himself by the ferocious team spirit at Highbury, after at first being surprised and almost alarmed by it, Wenger drew a similar fire from Bergkamp. In his first season at Arsenal the Dutch player gave the impression of not being interested if the game was not going his way. Now he often seems in need of Wright's rage counsellor.
If he has paid the price in red and yellow cards, Bergkamp is also producing the best football of his career. He says: "I did not know what to expect from the manager but I quickly realised that we share the same ideas about playing attacking football. Coming from Ajax, I sometimes believe we can play even more attacking, but in the English game you must be patient."
Naturally managers, like generals, need luck. And Wenger's big dollop of luck was to arrive at Arsenal after Adams had made his "I am an alcoholic" speech in the dressingroom, Paul Merson had seconded it, and Parlour had decided that without those two at his drinking elbow he might as well stay in at nights as well.
How Wenger would have dealt with the old Adams is anyone's guess. But the new Adams says of Wenger: "How much effect has he had on me and the other players? How long have you got?"
