When he does eventually leave, English football will yearn the loss of Arsene Wenger.
For his of his faults, Wenger has been one of the great men of English football, and is as deep and interesting a character as has ever graced the Premier League. He has given it a level of artistry and difference that has made the Premier League so intriguing for so many years.
The Premier League has become so fascinating because it has allowed a wide variety of characters a theatre to showcase their differences. Take Big Sam Allardyce, for example, who describes himself in his book as "some oik from the Midlands".
Arsene Wenger, then, couldn't be much different.
His interview with L'Equipe last year was eye-catching, as it included lines like these:
I always live in the future. It’s planned. Tight. My relationship with time is filled with anxiety. I’m always fighting against it. That’s why I ignore what’s in the past...
Religiously, it is said that God created man. I am only a guide. I enable others to express what they have within them. I didn’t create anything. I am a facilitator of what is beautiful in man. I define myself as an optimist. My never ending struggle in this business is to release what is beautiful in man. I can be described as naïve in that sense. But it allows me to believe, and I am often proven right.
I don’t deny what others feel, but feel like a kid from Duttlenheim who went running in the fields every day. Aristocrats had their heads cut off in France. I strive to pass on values. Not the right of blood. A civilisation that does not honour its dead or its values is doomed.
Sensational. Who else would give an interview like that?
Well, Wenger has had some further profound mutterings ahead of today's Premier League game with Middlesbrough. Today is his birthday, but he says that he has forgotten about it, so focused is he on today's game.
He admitted that he is afraid of the day he stops working, and then went all existential in explaining it:
Nobody lives a whole life by being motivated by the next game, stops suddenly and goes to church every day. If God exists and one day I go up there and he will ask: ‘Do you want to come in? What have you done in your life?’ And the only answer I will have is: ‘I tried to win football games.’ He will say: ‘Is that all you have done?’ And the only answer I will have is: ‘It’s not as easy as it looks.
We're not entirely sure whether the frenzied denizens of Arsenal Fan TV will express themselves in such a fashion were Arsenal to fail to beat 'Boro today, but then that makes Wenger all the more unique.
English football is lucky to have him.
[Guardian]
See Also: Ryan Giggs Offers Interesting Insight Into Where It All Went Wrong Under David Moyes
