Usually when a team suffers terrible results, the manager’s position is questioned. At Arsenal, the story is opposite, it is the manager Arsene Wenger who wants to call it quits sooner than his board prefers.
“I’ve set myself a target until 65 and then I will certainly make a move to some different job, unless I still feel like I do today.”
This is an excerpt from Wenger’s thoughts back in the summer of 2010 when he was envisioning his future.
Now, he is 64 and Arsenal want him for at least three more years, he says he wants two. Whether he still wants a different job remains to be seen.
He has not been short of offers to manage elsewhere over the years, because PSG, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich and even England courted him, but he gave up what might have been his managerial prime to keep the north London club afloat through a difficult rebuilding period (literally, in the case of the Emirates Stadium).
The last couple of years have presented Wenger with a different kind of situation; while most managers endure the same pressure he does when things do not go to plan, he didn’t get the credit he deserved when he toiled for the London club.
This is all because their club priorities have been dealing with financial obligations off-field and staying in Champions League. There were no trophies to savour the efforts and no individual awards to reward such a talented, dedicated and hardworking manager.
Wenger met the club’s target every season but some sections of the club’s fans and media outlets quickly forgot. When Arsenal lost 3-1 at home against Aston Villa, some chanted that Wenger did not know what he was doing. That rightly hurt the French manager but it goes on to highlight the unenviable job he has been doing over a couple of years; after a 100 per cent success rate, his work barely got the credit it deserved.
He recently said: “I felt part of my responsibility was to push the club through that difficult period as well as I could.
“I knew from the start that our financial viability was linked with us being in the Champions League or not. You can imagine how much I did sweat for years in the last three months [of seasons].
“It was maybe not the most prolific period on the trophy side but maybe one day I will look back on it and that will be the period I am most proud of.”
Now the hard part is gone; a season from now, Arsenal will join an elite group of clubs that generates revenue in excess of £300m-a-year so there won’t be any need to sell star performers.
Wenger already has a young team that is still in the title race regardless of the high number of injuries they have dealt with.
The future of Arsenal looks great; most of the club’s star players are young and they will only improve. And there will be more than enough money to bring in quality players and improve the team this summer and beyond.
For all his unnoticed blood, sweat and tears, Wenger deserves to win with this team for a while before leaving.
