Arsène Wenger is looking very relaxed. His Arsenal are having a successful pre‑season tournament in Singapore and he is looking forward to the new season. His team finished the last campaign strongly and, with the addition of a world-class goalkeeper in Petr Cech, there is genuine belief around the club that they can challenge Chelsea and Manchester City for the league title.
What a contrast to eight months ago when the Frenchman was confronted by a horde of angry Arsenal fans at Stoke train station. The Gunners had just suffered a demoralising 3-2 defeat at the Britannia and found themselves in sixth place, 13 points behind Chelsea.
It was too much for the Arsenal supporters and, as they were waiting at the station, they loudly jeered Wenger as he walked past them and boarded the train. Booed by his own fans at a train station in Stoke? How had it come to this? Surely no one would have blamed the Frenchman if he had decided, at that moment, that enough was enough and that it was time to call it a day and follow Sir Alex Ferguson into the twilight.
But Wenger, who turns 66 in October, continues to rage against the dying of the light. He has spoken to the former Manchester United manager about life after football but shudders at the mere thought of walking away from the game. Instead he has continued to rebuild Arsenal and there is genuine excitement when he talks about the new campaign.
And if Arsenal go on to win their first league title since 2004, then we may all look back and realise that events at Stoke train station simply proved that the darkest moment always comes before the dawn. “I have big experience and experience helps you anticipate what you will face,” Wenger says when thinking back to the events of that December evening but adds: “I did not necessarily anticipate that. Even here there are unpredictable responses.
“You would not necessarily expect people to insult you on the way to the train. It’s the way society has gone and you have to go with it. You can take it or not. I can, as well, take a distance from that. I know the same people can be excessive on one side and the other side. That’s where experience helps. You have a good assessment of who you are. And you’re not influenced by what people say, whether that’s on one side too positive and on the other side too negative.”
So he never entertained thoughts of hanging up that unzippable jacket of his? “Retirement? Yes, it crosses my mind sometimes but for no longer than five seconds because I panic a little bit. When we played at Man United, he [Alex Ferguson] came to meet me after the game. I said: ‘Come on, you don’t miss it?’ He says: ‘No.’ He had enough. He goes to every game. But he has horses. I have no horses.
“Enthusiasm? That is not a problem, honestly. I am more committed than ever for that. I just think the number of times you have done it doesn’t count. It is how much you love what you do that counts.
“And the love of what you do is not necessarily diminished by the number of times you’ve done it. Football is new every day. That’s a big quality. It makes you question. Because with every defeat people say: ‘What is this guy doing?’ Every three days you are questioned. You have an exam every three days. You have no way to look back. You have to prepare the next exam and come out of it with success. So it always demands 100% commitment.
“I’m like everybody. The job of a manager is to reduce the time of crisis. I want to do well for the club and, as well, when I leave one day, leave the club in a position where the club can go on and on. That is why I always fought for the financial fair play – that is vital so the guy who comes in has top quality players, a strong financial situation and can work with his ideas. That, for me, is very, very important.”
Indeed, Wenger is still ahead of the game, bristling with enthusiasm, innovative ideas and the perspective to forgive and understand even his angriest critics. He would even take financial fair play a stage further and create a quasi-socialist league, where every team has the same amount of money to spend. “You want, ideally, a Premier League where every club gets £100m and then let’s see how good you are. It was the case maybe 30 years ago but not that case any more,” he says.
“In Spain only two clubs can win it, in Germany only one club can win it and the different rule changes have changed that. We will certainly not see Nottingham Forest winning the European Cup any more and we can analyse the reasons, but it is just down to financial resources. The clubs who have better financial resources have the better teams.”
And with that Wenger outlines the foundations of how he likes to do things. He said: “We want to continue to combine stronger financial resources with faith in our philosophy and policy. That means giving chances to young players and building from inside our club with our culture. After, if we can buy the exceptional players, we can compete today. But that will not be the basis of our policy.
“Most of the clubs who have been successful are clubs who have done that well. You can take Barcelona or Manchester United, who had a generation and built their success on players who came from within. These are our values and it is our DNA and it’s important we keep that.”
Wenger believes Louis van Gaal has moved away from that practice at Old Trafford because they have the financial resources to try it a different way and no longer have the patience to continue to do what they did in the absence of homegrown talent such as Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes and David Beckham. In Van Gaal’s defence, and to a lesser extent his own, the Frenchman says it is harder to group together young English talent than it was when he succeeded Bruce Rioch at Highbury in 1996.
Wenger won the first of two League and FA Cup Doubles in his first full season in charge. Other honours swiftly followed, culminating in the unbeatable Invincible season of 2003-04. He is keen to play down similarities between his current squad, though, despite the fact that his only major summer signing that year was the experienced goalkeeper Jens Lehmann. For the German, this season read Cech.
The Arsenal captain, Mikel Arteta, recently discussed a four-year plan coming to fruition for Arsenal this year with players such as Theo Walcott, Mesut Özil and Jack Wilshere close to peaking, but bold predictions are something Wenger is also keen to distance himself from. He admits the only promise he can make is that Arsenal genuinely can compete for the title again, something he said in the past but now admits he could not justify when annually selling without the funds to replace players such as Cesc Fàbregas, Samir Nasri and Robin van Persie.
“Of course [there were times I didn’t think we could win the league]. Why? Because when you lose your best players it is impossible. And see opponents strengthen their squad and they are already stronger than you.
“You just get into the top four because you managed to win and grab every single point and see others still strengthening and on top of that you are losing you’re best players, it is difficult to be convinced you can still win the league.”
So, what will represent a successful season now? The title? Another FA Cup? Perhaps neither as for Wenger it is all about fulfilling potential. “I know where the team can be at the end of the season,” he says. “Have I got the maximum out of the team or not? That’s where experience helps. I know if I could have won the league or not. For example, the year we lost it at Birmingham, we could have won the league in 2008. Last year, no, because after six games we were 11 points behind Chelsea and to catch 11 points back was nearly impossible with the start they made.
“Stability is undervalued and that is what we want to show. I believe Chelsea has good stability, especially defensively, and they took advantage of it from the start of the season.”