IT’S JUST LIKE RUSSIAN ROULETTE
Wenger on wheel of fortune
ARSENE WENGER says equalling Sir Alex Ferguson’s record of Premier League matches feels like surviving 810 games of Russian roulette.
The Arsenal boss will hit the mark against Crystal Palace tonight 21 years after his first.
There have been good times and bad, with two league and cup Doubles, the ‘Invincibles’ season and plenty of ‘Wenger Out’ moments more recently.
But the Frenchman is proud of his record.
Asked what he would have said if told before his first game against Blackburn in 1996 that he would still be here, Wenger said: “I would have said, ‘You’re absolutely mad! Absolutely no chance’.
“I remember when I was 33, 34, I thought that to 60 is 25, 26 years. You’ll never get there, because every game is such a gamble.
“It’s Russian roulette, every game. So you think at some stage the trigger will hit you.
“So that’s absolutely unbelievable. You can never predict that.”
One of Wenger’s lowest moments came in this fixture last season, when his team lost 3-0 at Selhurst Park and away fans called for him to go.
Some chanted, ‘You’re not fit to wear the shirt’ at his players, while defender Hector Bellerin had the ball thrown back in his face when it went out of play.
But Wenger said: “You have to keep a positive mind. This job is about analysing in the most positive way why things happen. If we watch again this game against Palace, you will see it was not as bad as everybody said.
“That is what you have to do. Don’t be carried away by all the negativity you get.”
Wenger says there are many reasons why he has lasted so long.
“Loyalty, dedication, and hard work, the sacrifice of your life, that’s what it demands, and as well luck,” he said.
“I was in a club who trusted in me always, through good and bad periods. And luck as well because I didn’t miss one game in 21 years, that means you need to be healthy.
“I stayed here as well because I am at a club where I can identify with the values.
“I think the values are more important than all the rest.”
The Arsenal boss said the game had changed completely since he started. He added: “I remember in our first game I banned all the chocolate that the players had before the game.
“When we drove to Blackburn on the coach, the players chanted, ‘We want our Mars bars!’. Now they have their music in their headphones.
“It has changed but the core of the game is the same. The spirit, quality on the pitch and human beings putting their effort together to achieve something.
“What has changed is society. We have gone to more individualism. Respect for basic values has gone. But I believe what is the most important is to believe in human beings.
“When you’re such a long time in the job, you’re not naive. You know all the strengths and the weaknesses and how sometimes people can be selfish or mean.
“But you still have to believe that there is a light in every human being that you can get out.”