WENGER: I’M LOVING LIFE AFTER ARSENAL
Arsene admits he found it strange watching Gunners when he left but he’s getting fit, seeing friends and waiting to return to football
ARSENE WENGER admits he found it a “strange” experience watching Arsenal after his 22 years in charge came to an end.
But he has clearly become increasingly used to life without the Gunners, football management and the all-consuming stress of being one of the game’s highest-profile figures.
Wenger, 69, is enjoying his new-found freedom, spending time with the friends and family sacrificed for all those years. He is even planning to write an autobiography revealing all about his time at Arsenal.
The Frenchman runs around eight kilometres every day – he still wears one of his old Arsenal tracksuits – and follows his former club closely, though has deliberately avoided doing any TV punditry on them.
He admits he expected to return to management much sooner – there is still a job offer on the table from Lyon – but it quickly becomes apparent he might not return at all. “It was a bit strange at the start, but my mind is quite well trained to focus on what I want to focus on,” said Wenger.
“I neglected all the people around me a lot, so I had a bit more time. I also thought, do I go straight back into that heat again?
“Once you go in there, there is nothing else. So I thought, let’s take a bit of time. OK, two months, three months. Now I have a problem to get in again!
“I will go back into football, for sure. In what position I don’t know, whether as a manager or not. The appetite, the desire, is still there. I know what kind of life I have in front of me.”
His first steps back have come as an investor and partner in football technology company Playermaker, which installs microchips in boots to track every imaginable piece of data.
Of course, Wenger was a trailblazer when he first arrived in English football, his new training methods, diet and tactics transformed Arsenal, together with his soundbites becoming back-page headline gold. His autobiography will be a best seller and he has become an excellent TV pundit, as well as being proud of the legacy he has left at Arsenal, as the club’s most successful manager.
He said: “I enjoyed it (the year since leaving the Gunners) a lot. I do different things, with less intensity. But I have a better perspective of what is going on. I see the mistakes managers make and I don’t pay the price for it.
“Of course, I miss it. I worked for 40 years in management, and then you walk out, and say you don’t miss it. It’s normal. But when I miss it, I focus on something different in life. “I want to share what I learned in my life because life is only useful if, at some stage, you share what you know. “I don’t know how much legacy I left. You do your job, like you think you have to do it. I know I gave my best and tried always to move forward. I think, in a club, you can leave a trace in the spirit of the players, in the legs of the players but, as well, inside the club.”
Wenger has always tried not to turn his home into a museum, but there is one item – the unique gold Premier League trophy given to him last year to commemorate ‘The Invincibles’ – which he holds dear.
He added: “Yes, it is at my home. It is one of the few things I kept because that was, of course, the immaculate season.”
His stamp of class and success will never be forgotten.