WHAT HAPPENED NEXT ARSENE WENGER

August 2018

On the first weekend of the new Premier League season, there is concern among Arsenal staff that nobody has seen Arsène Wenger for a while. ‘It’s weird, he came pretty much every day over the summer with a plastic bag of belongings, just to sit at his old desk whenever the new manager was out, and appear at the window during meetings. Now we can’t find him,’ one coach says. By kickoff, all becomes clear. Wenger, under a white sheet, drifts out from the dugout and looms behind successor Unai Emery. He then taunts him, criticises his new tactics, and performs a ghostly dance around the box. To pin-drop silence, he is escorted from the stadium at half-time.

October 2018

Now fully exorcised – and banned, in fact – from the Emirates, Wenger looks at a few high-profile job vacancies. He considers taking over Peter Stringfellow’s empire, purely so he can open a venue called ‘Arse’n’all’. Then he is shortlisted to become the Government’s new Brexit Secretary, on the grounds that ‘despite being French, his CV boasts unrivalled experience exiting Europe prematurely’.

December 2019

After a series of failed roles outside of sport, Wenger returns to what he does best: managing football clubs chosen solely because their names are similar to his. Initially he takes on a side in the Bavarian municipality of Weng, building them up to the German fourth division before briefly switching to Senegal, then the Mongolian district of Ger. Next he starts a team for the 19th-century settlement of Wenger in California. ‘I have no more worlds left to conquer,’ he says, furiously googling place names. Until he happens upon Arselona, a pub-quiz team in Bromley. ‘Je suis back in the game!’