PUEL SENT OLD BOSS FLYING
CLAUDE PUEL has revealed how he almost changed the course of Arsenal’s history.
Leicester’s French boss kicked Arsene Wenger into touch long before Gunners fans latched onto the idea.
Puel takes his Leicester side to the Emirates tonight celebrating a year in charge and recalling how he gave the legendary boss the cold shoulder.
Wenger’s two decades at the helm are now confined to the history books as Unai Emery tries to mould a side in his own image.
Chuckle
But as the Leicester team bus pulls into the ground tonight, Puel, who played under Wenger at Monaco, will have a chuckle casting his mind back to a winter’s day when he sent his boss flying.
Puel said: “There was snow on the pitch and we played with a red ball so we could see it more easily.
“Sometimes Arsene liked to play in training sessions with us.
“It was a ball between me and him and we arrived at the same time but as I touched the ball he somersaulted through the air and fell into the snow, with his arms flailing, and he couldn’t move. It was funny. He was crying out and couldn’t move and the physio had to come and get him and take him to the gym.
“We continued the training session with his assistant. I thought it was finished for me.”
Puel tells the story as if to underline that beneath his softly-spoken, mildmannered exterior there’s a devil inside hell bent on winning.
Even his wife doesn’t escape the Frenchman’s competitive nature.
He said: “Two or three times I go and I try to play a little golf. Sometimes if I play with my wife there is also a problem.
“I have to be competitive. I let my wife win – that way I can eat something in the evening.
“She doesn’t accept this. Often she is angry. I don’t know if it’s because my behaviour puts her under pressure and she doesn’t like this.
“It is the same thing with my children. All the family are in competition.” Answering claims from star striker Jamie Vardy that he had been kicked by the boss in training, Puel laughed unsympathetically, adding: “He needs to move the ball more quickly!”
Puel celebrates a year in charge at the King Power this week and says it was a risky business taking over a side that two years earlier had been champions.
Like Emery at Arsenal, he says taking over at a club that has enjoyed success can be the hardest thing of all.
Strategy
Puel is desperate to build something, adding: “Leicester had success and won the Premier League without a lot of experience and without a process to step by step put in place a strategy.
“Of course it was difficult. I don’t know if it was the best time to arrive at Leicester because the club needed to evolve and put in place different things.”
He now finds himself with a significant proportion of England’s talent – Harry Maguire, Ben Chilwell, James Maddison and Demarai Gray with Vardy only just retired from Three Lions duty.
“All parts of the club are continuing to improve, that’s the most important thing,” he said.
“We can’t take all the best players in the world to make a team like Manchester City or United but we can have another way and develop players.
“I think one day Leicester can perform at the highest level and play Champions League games, not just as a one-off but consistently.
“It’s not good to think of Leicester as being a good club that finishes in the middle of the table without the objective of developing further. It’s not good to do that.”
Puel believes that knocking back Manchester United’s £65m summer raid for Maguire showed the Foxes are no longer there to be picked off.
“We kept Harry with all that was going on,” he said. “Perhaps it’s because he felt we can improve together.”