Goodbye… but Wenger is a wanted man
DAVID DEIN has revealed offers of work are already coming in for Arsene Wenger after the 68-year-old announced that he will quit Arsenal at the end of the season.
The former chief executive at the club has remained close to the Frenchman since bringing him to the Premier League 22 years ago and said in a Sky Sports interview that Wenger is still much in demand.
“He will have no shortage of offers,” said Dein. “I personally had calls from various people yesterday, saying, ‘Can I speak to him?’
“Over the last few years, he has been approached by some of the biggest clubs in the world – Real Madrid, Paris Saint-Germain – and the national team wanted him at one stage.
“The question is, will he want to do it any more? It’s getting more and more difficult. It’s a bit of a pressure cooker.
“Arsene is going to be 69 in October but he keeps himself extraordinarily fit. He is the same weight as when I met him – 75 kilos. He’s got a very active mind, such a knowledge of the game.”
Dein admitted Wenger gambled last summer on being able to turn around the slump that led to Arsenal finishing outside the top four places for the first time in his tenure.
But even until quite recently, he was unwilling to accept that it really was time to go.
“At the end of last season I was discussing with him, ‘Arsene, what do you want to do?’ Are you going to stay? Are you going to leave?’ He was a bit REPORTS undecided,” said Dein. “It was weighing everything up – if you leave now, this is the situation; if you go on, you roll the dice another year or two. What’s going to happen?’
“He made his own mind up and decided to stay. But I felt in the last couple of weeks, it has been getting more difficult for him, particularly with the team’s results.
“I thought that, on a personal level, it was unlikely that he was going tostay after the end of the season.”
Club captain Per Mertesacker said the players feel responsible for Wenger’s decision, announced on Friday, to end his current deal a year early but that the sentiment in the dressing room falls a long way short of any sort of guilt.
“We sit here in one boat and we have not been that successful over the past couple of years,” said the former Germany defender.
“We won trophies, we won the FA Cup, but in terms of achieving Champions League football every season we have not done it. In terms of top-four finishes, we are not able to achieve it this season. We have been outperformed by other teams and you have to admit that.
“There are a lot of people responsible, not only the manager. It has not sunk in enough to say we are guilty, but we are also responsible for the situation.”
Arsenal are hopeful that Mohamed Elneny will play again this season despite revealing that he suffered ankle ligament damage against West Ham on Sunday.
The Egypt midfielder was carried off on a stretcher on the stroke of half-time having fallen awkwardly while competing for the ball with Mark Noble.
Wenger said after the 4-1 win that the injury “didn’t look good”.
But the club feel Elneny, 25, could make a return before the end of the season and feature in Egypt’s World Cup campaign.