Arsene Wenger has revealed that 2007 is the year that he should have probably left Arsenal after the club fired his close ally, David Dein.
Wenger spent more than 20 years at the club until he was relieved of his duties in 2018.
The Frenchman has been speaking about his time at the club recently and after revealing that he was approached by Manchester United when he was a manager at the Emirates, he has now claimed that he contemplated leaving in 2007.
He revealed that when Dein was fired, he saw his loyalty to the club tested and although Dein had urged him to remain at Arsenal, he considered leaving.
He also stated that he had offers to leave at the time as well, revealing that PSG had approached him at least twice just like the England national team.
He also had an offer from Real Madrid, but he also knew that it was a sensitive period for the club and he would have hurt them if he left.
He told Daily Mail: “Maybe when David Dein was sacked in 2007 that was the moment when I could have said bye-bye.
“I felt torn between my loyalty to the club and my loyalty to David.
“He asked me to stay but at first I didn’t feel comfortable with the idea.
“I didn’t understand why he had to go. But I knew as well that the club was going into a new stadium, the most sensitive period of its lifetime.
“I could have really hurt Arsenal had I left then. And I did have options.
“Real Madrid twice, Paris Saint-Germain two or three times, England two or three times. It was difficult.
“You want everybody to support you, and when they don’t it’s quite difficult.
“You do think, “Why am I here? Why am I doing this? What do I want to achieve?”
Well he should have left before he did, but some of his teams with Fabregas, Hleb, Rosicky, Jack, Van Persie, Sanchez, Ramsey, and Nasri were full of high class players. Trouble is Emery didn’t and Arteta doesn’t seem to go for these types of players. It is all controlled now, very little excitement or magic. We play flavourless football with no seasoning….boring.
Very true don’t find the football that exciting need to move the ball a lot quicker
Didn’t he say “I COULD have left”?
That is totally different to writing he “reveals the year that he probably SHOULD have left.
He CONSIDERED leaving was the word he used and this is covered in his autobiography.
I guess I’ll be accused of all sorts of things by pointing this error out but the future generation of Gooners need to be aware of the truth and not biased interpretation, whether deliberate or not.
So true KEN ! The massive difference in two words that SOME think, wrongly, mean the same thing. But those who insist on correct use of language – and yes, I am prominent among those – know WHY precise language is so important, if we truly wish to get at the full truth.
Sloppy and misleading language and those silly emojis,used by lazy minded people and which I loathe, are rife today by those who fail to understand how vital CORRECT language really is.
I do NOT refer to mere typos, spelling mistakes, errors in punctuation, which I am quite relaxed about, PROVIDED that the key words are accurate and used in their proper context.
Some young people will never learn, because they are too lazy minded, how vital is the correct use of language for proper and fully understandable communication and to avoid misunderstandings.
On another thread today I had cause to pull up Dan Smith in his article about players who left the club under bad relations . To his credit he did admit his language had been sloppy. THAT is the sort of problem that sloppy and incorrect language can often create. Sigh!
IN TRUTH, IN MODERN TIMES THE USE OF CORRECT LANGUAGE HAS MASSIVELY DECLINED, PARTLY BECAUSE SO FEW KIDS ACTUALLY READ BOOKS AND BECAUSE OF TEXTS.
Wars have been started by language misunderstandings, though some youngstes will be unaware of that tragedy. They SHOULD stop being lazy with language.
I’m not saying this is the case here Jon, but sometimes the misuse of words can be quite a deliberate act, in order to deceive or alter the actual statement.
I always have my trusty dictionary nearby, just to verify if I am in any doubt.
As I haven’t read his autobiography I can only go on his utmost commitment to Arsenal and believing that everything he did was for the benefit of Arsenal.
A giant of a man. I can only counter it by saying that his love for the club muddied his thinking towards the end but he has my heartfelt thanks for bringing some of the best football I’ve witnessed and top class players too.
Well worth reading SueP.
An insight into his passion and love for The Arsenal – an admission of mistakes – why he has stayed away from the club and, at the end of the book, a detailed resume of each season.
Well worth the £25 in my opinion.
he should have left in 2007
the fans do not deserve him….
the club could have relegated, have no champ league football, and/or etc….between 2008 and 2018
And without him, we might not have been a joke 14 years in row in the league. We might not have gone 9 years without winning a thing. We might have done something in Europe. We might have avoided the constant thrashings and humiliations.
There’s always two sides to look at.
with limited funds and huge amount of debt….
it is definitely 100% possible for another manager to win titles between 2007 and 2018
Yeah with the mess we were in financially, who would have come and taken us to El Dorado, may I ask?
only his bank balance would get hurt, nothing more. Unai in his first year missed UCL by a point and got us to an EL final. Mikel in his first year won an FA and CS. no big deal, no charity done, no weeping over spilt milk, no need to go back in time and read autobiographies, utter waste of time, live in the present plan for the future, past is past. He had to go someday, he did go that day.Someday Mikel will go either after two years or twenty years.Who knows? Too much pampering a loser and a failure for over ten years.
Yeah, and what happened with Unai in his second season? The man was completely out of his depths here. Are you sure AW would not have gotten a job elsewhere if he had left Arsenal? Better teams at that time had his sights set on him, and that was an era where Wengerball was still flourishing. And yeah no one is crying over split milk, everyone is behind MA now.
It shd be the year when Eduardo was crucially injured and with it the chances of the epl title.
He was lucky he inherited a strong defence.
When Adams and company retired,his defence was repeatedly ripped to pieces .
His defenders were below par and still he wanted to play attacking soccer.
Boro 5-3,Spurs 5-4. Luckily he was winning then.
Before the 8-2 massacre he insisted he need not get anybody.He shd have left there and then. I dont know why the board did not fire him.
Even revered names who have won the cl and whose resume is much ,much better than his his,have been known to be axed following a humilating defeat
Klopp and Solsjaer should have gotten fired when their teams got hammered 2 weeks ago
LOL, the inherited defense is a word that people throw around a lot, don’t they? So you are just conveniently going to ignore the Invincibles backline and Arsene Wenger’s career overall of conceding less than a goal per game and say his defense was repeatedly getting ripped? Please check your facts!
What evidence do people have that nobody could’ve done a better job than Arsene? Arsenal was one of THE most attractive clubs in world football in 2007. You don’t know what manager we couldve attracted if he left, and how things could’ve turned out. Maybe better, maybe worse. How things did turn out was a gradual decline from challengers, to top 4, to top 6 side, so it’s fair to say the AW staying route was not the most ideal result.