Say what you like, but he’s still Arsène Wenger. We know the company he keeps at Fifa these days, and it’s depressing, but he’s still forgotten more about the game of football than most will ever know.
So it is Wenger that wishes to reacquaint football with the essence of offside. Its point. Its basic fairness. Offside isn’t about toenails, shirt sleeves, armpits or any single part of the human body. It’s about the whole man — and daylight. Clear and obvious daylight. It’s not about measurements that couldn’t possibly have been envisaged in 1866. Offside rules were written with reference to what could be seen with the naked eye, in real time. That is the spirit of the law. Everything else is a modern
