Tony Adams has gone back down memory lane to discuss what it was like to work with Arsene Wenger.
He talked about how accommodating the Frenchman was during his playing days before using Ian Wright as an example. Adams claimed that Wright turned up to training with the club late on a regular basis.
Yet, instead of getting angry at him, Arsene Wenger accommodated him and the gaffer even pushed training back so that Wright can make the training whenever he is able to come.
Wenger was Arsenal’s manager for more than 20 years and he won the Premier League with Wright on his team in the striker’s final season at Arsenal before the Englishman moved to West Ham.
Adams reckons that Wright always got away with coming late because Wenger was lenient towards him.
‘Arsene Wenger threw up a whole different way of managing through love. With kindness, consideration and compassion. All these words I’d never bloody heard of! I thought it was fight, fight, fight, fight, fight!’ Adams said on The Micky & Woody Show’s Podcast as quoted by the Metro.
‘He managed with love: “Are you having a bad day today, Tony? Why don’t you take the day off?”
‘I always remember his lovely style, it might sum up his style of management which was really interesting. The lunatic, talking about emotionally up and down, Ian Wright used to play for us and he was coming in from Croydon every day. Every single day, late. Every single day.
‘I said to Arsene, “Are you gonna say something or me? I’m gonna pin him. I’m six weeks clean and sober so I’m not gonna pin [laughs] him but I’m having a conversation!”
‘And Arsene said: “Nooo, nooo! We put training back so he can get in on time”. I said, “What?! Put training back?! What are you talking about?!”
‘He said, “But listen, we need him at the moment. The minute we don’t need him, we get rid of him”. I said, “I’m not gonna have a confrontation, we’ll put training back, we’ll allow him to get in on time, we train with him, we leave him”.
‘To be honest with you, there’s a balancing line so I pinned Wrighty as well [laughs]. I said: “Wrighty, we’ve got to pick the kids up in the afternoon so get yourself inside!”
Wenger’s way worked, whether it was unconventional or not it brought immense success at the time, it is just a shame that he was unable to maintain it for the entire duration of his tenure.
Tony Adams came through the hard side of football whilst Wenger was very much the gentleman.
Over the years many great stars in world sports have stayed too long, had one fight too many and diminished their legacy. AW should have gone out on a high having achieved his last FA Cup win. It just seems that it isn’t always easy to know when to move on to the next chapter/challenge.
Wenger’s last FA cup was won in 2017. If you remember, Wenger was 13 years on from his last Premiership trophy and fell short of Top Four for the first. He wasn’t on any “high” in his Arsenal career at that point in any way, shape or form. He resigned about 10 months later. What was the difference?
I’m fully aware that there had been too many years without a league title. Some of this can be attributed to the advent of unbelievably wealthy new owners who virtually bought titles making it much harder for the rest. Only Leicester achieved a PL win and even ManU struggled due to greater opposition.
He won two FA cups in quick succession and leaving then would have been a high in my opinion even though his leadership was already diminished.
The difference is that he didn’t leave then, but carried on tarnishing his legacy. He didn’t know when to quit
Some people will always find a way to rubbish the efforts of Wenger no matter how clearly stated, its a pity, Roger federer is still competing ,don’t know how far he has tarnished his image, the undertaker is still competing ,don’t know how far he has tarnished his image, imagine if Wenger have dump us with the slightest sight of trouble to a club like Madrid or bayern and may be won more troubles including the champions league,couldn’t we have seen him as a betrayer? We abused the likes of Ashley Cole, nasri ,RVP For jumping ship when we needed them most yet we also abused Wenger for not leaving what a world!
Here is the difference.Those players left when they were top players and the club could do nothing about it. Wenger left when he was past his sell by date.