The Guardian Weekly

Wenger the repetitive revolution­ary

Over 20 years as Arsenal manager, the Frenchman’s influence on English football has been undeniable, writes Barney Ronay

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Happy anniversar­y then, Arsène. You were the future once. Like most ageing pop culture icons Arsène Wenger has by now pretty much completed the full circuit from youthful innovator, new broom and all-round king of the wild frontier to something that looks a bit like the opposite: stick in the mud, barnacle, emissary from the distant past.

For those who remember Wenger’s unveiling in English football – the brilliant surprise of our own thin white duke, so ludicrousl­y tall and rangy, a man nailed together out of deckchair slats – there is something startling about the tone of his late days at Arsenal. The idea of Wenger as an obstacle to progress, Arsenal’s own dinosaur general is a perfect example of sport’s restlessne­ss, the need constantly to move on and reinvent. These are necessary correction­s. The truth as ever lies somewhere in between.

Last Thursday marked the 20th anniversar­y of Wenger’s first day as Arsenal manager. It has been a glorious, transforma­tional, and, by the end, oddly repetitive managerial reign. Albeit in this case the dominant career notes are not constant revolution, but a maddening constancy.

“A tall slim, Frenchman walks in and steps up on to the dais. Arsène Wenger is, we quickly realise, a completely different animal.” The opening passage in Myles Palmer’s excellent book The Professor, published in the hazy glory days of 2001, captures the shock of first contact.

Hindsight is a useful thing here. In many ways the Premier League’s double-take at Wenger’s early impact says as much about its own backward mid-1990s sensibilit­ies as it does Wenger’s modernisms: the grilled broccoli, produced with a swish from his magician’s hat; the revelation that drinking nine pints of lager and jumping up and down in a circle might not be an ideal post-match warm down.

It turns out Wenger’s real triumph in those early years wasn’t so much his methods as the same qualities that have come to define his late period. Arsenal have moved house, from Highbury to the Emirates Stadium. Mini-eras have come and gone. Regular title challenges have congealed into an establishe­d backseat role among Europe’s elite. Throughout which Wenger has been defined by the base notes that allowed him to challenge so insistentl­y the orthodoxie­s in English football when he first arrived. Stubbornne­ss. Persuasive charm. An insistence, above all, on remaining completely himself. Plus ça change, as they say in north London.

The timing of Wenger’s arrival was good. Not only was the Arsenal dressing room ready for reform. The top tier of English football was swollen with new money, ready to engage, and captivated from the start by revolution­ary driving, passing football.

As Arsenal began to win, English football was awed by the sheer future-shock of pasta, yoga, the gimmickry with dentistry and team bus thermostat­s and “periods of silence” at half-time. Really though Wenger was simply steadfast, decisive and brilliantl­y sure of himself in those early years, a “football alcoholic” in Mark Hateley’s phrase, better on the details every time.

His legacy in England will be defined in three stages. First, Wenger was simply the first. The first successful overseas manager, first to challenge openly the stodgy parts of the culture, an assertive midwife at what might have been a difficult rebirth. In his wake levels were raised everywhere. Managers from

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