‘I give my best for my club that I love’
Defiant Wenger still standing after ‘earthquake’ of League Cup loss
ARSENE WENGER is adamant that he intends to honour his Arsenal contract, and won’t walk away from the job in the summer.
The 68-year-old even stressed that he was “amazed” at being asked about it given his long record of sticking to any deal, as well as at the “earthquake” that followed Sunday’s League Cup final defeat to Manchester City, given that it has brought so much speculation about his future.
Wenger signed a new deal in May, that runs to the summer of 2019, and his stance essentially means that Arsenal – or, more pointedly, majority shareholder Stan Kroenke – would have to take the sensational step of sacking the long-serving legend if there is to finally be change at the club.
“I have been here for 21 years and I always respected my contract so I am quite amazed that you ask me the question,” Wenger stressed. “In life, I look at what people do, not at what they say. What I did in my life was that, so I am quite amazed that you asked me the question. If you want me not to be here, that’s a different problem. You ask me my commitment, and my attitude is dictated by what I did in my life, not by what I say in a press conference.”
Wenger had previously pointed to how he had “turned the whole world down to respect my contracts”. He had in the past been approached by Real Madrid and Barcelona. Wenger went onto make clear his amazement at just how much speculation a defeat in a cup final had caused, having pointed to how a club doesn’t get to such a showpiece “by coincidence”.
“I am quite amazed that it is such an earthquake that we have lost a final – that means that we have got our fans used to going to Wembley and win it. But nobody can guarantee that.”
The reality is that “earthquake” – the criticism as well as the intense speculation that he could be replaced in the summer – was largely caused by the greatly changed landscape around the club. It is less than a year since CEO Ivan Gazidis told a supporters’ meeting that Wenger must be a “catalyst for change”, and there have since then been 10 backroom appointments, most notably Sven Mislintat as head of recruitment and Raul Sanllehi as head of football relations. While these are not intended to dilute Wenger’s current power, they are intended to put in place a modern structure so the club is properly equipped for when he does eventually leave, and avoid the kind of vacuum that Manchester United suffered when Alex Ferguson retired in 2013.
Much like Wenger, the Scot’s authority was such that the Old Trafford hierarchy found that it was about more than replacing one man, and this is what Arsenal have been looking to prepare for.
The net effect of those appointments and a gradual decline in league performance over the last two years – with the club looking likely to again miss out on the top four – is nevertheless the feeling that Wenger is less insulated than he has ever been. It’s understood that Arsenal have drawn up a provisional shortlist of potential replacements – including Brendan Rodgers and Leonardo Jardim – but that is naturally just to do with the good practice of having a contingency plan in place. That is still the context Sunday’s result came in, with the nature of the 3-0 collapse only adding to the tremors and questions about his future.
The situation has previously always been that Wenger’s reward for his service would be that he gets to decide when he goes, but so much upheaval naturally led to questions over whether that has also changed. Asked about this, Wenger said: “The decision has technically always been mine and that will remain because it’s part of my job.”
When asked about the club’s plans just before this, however, he had stated: “I don’t know. In life you focus on the quality of your job. How well you commit, how hard you work. And you try to master what you can master. What is above you… you will not decide your future in your newspapers, and I am exactly like you. I am an employee and I give my best for my club that I love.”
Much has similarly been made of Stan Kroenke’s son Josh visiting Arsenal for an in-depth review of how it is run, amid expectation he will eventually succeed his father in the overall running of the club, but Arsenal state that has been planned for a year.
CRITICISM
Sources close to Wenger, meanwhile, maintain that his words are straight up, and do not feel he would walk away in the summer, that he still loves the game and the job too much. The manager did offer a joke when he was asked whether the players care as much as him, given the criticism the team faced in the wake of the City defeat.
“As much, I don’t know. We have not found at the moment a machine that measures exactly the intensity of the disappointments, but disappointed... you’re not at the top level if you don’t love to win.
“They are like you when you have a big something, a project, in front of you and you miss it. But you cannot make a career without disappointment unfortunately and what makes a career is how the players respond always and how you respond as a manager.”
Arsenal’s meet City again tonight in the home fixture that was rescheduled because of the League Cup final. Wenger does know one thing: that they probably need to score first if they are to win.
“You have to accept as well that you played against a quality team. That’s what I speak about, taking a little bit perspective of the game as well, is that you know, first of all, 85pc of big games are decided by the first goal. Once you’re against a team of that character down 1-0, you know you have a hell of a task and the second goal, straight away – incidentally that was offside for me – and makes of course a big difference.” (© Independent News Service)