Some might see this as wry understatement, nudging the reader to infer that the Frenchman's ego is unhealthily hefty, his bon viveur side prone to distract him from his job; and the Old Etonian's ostensibly amiable comment that "it's always a pleasure to compete with Arnaud" has a potential barbed subtext too.
At a club where the actions of Mike Ashley, the owner, and Joe Kinnear, the director of football, sometimes lack a certain class, the manager's creditably balanced, invariably amiable, public comments and appearances have regularly deflected attention from problems behind the scenes.
C. Dale Discher, 59 years old, said his early retirement was "amiable," and declined to comment further.
ESPNcricinfo reviewed the piece in October, commenting on Boycott's more amiable personality since his recovery from cancer: "we have a much more rounded and nuanced book, full of self-awareness and a willingness, even eagerness, to acknowledge errors, failings and regrets.
Facing a crowd of eighty thousand people in Central Park, he made casual comments before the encore, cutting an amiable profile.
When I interviewed amiable Dagenham backbencher Jon Cruddas he called all this "cross-dressing" and commented: "It's almost physiologically they're all merging into one".
I was impressed with the commandment of one of my freshman-year roommates, an amiable boarding-school graduate with three last names, that the only comment a gentleman's outfit should generate is that he is properly dressed for the occasion.
Pragmatic and amiable, perhaps.
