It is no mean feat to manage 811 games in the Premier league, especially at a top team like Arsenal, when you see our rivals like Chelsea, Man United and Man City changing their managers after the slightest hint of a bad run shows cracks in the machine. But Arsene Wenger, who will create that new record today deserves the extra respect, according to today’s opposing manager Alan Pardew, who said: “Before the game I’m going to shake his hand and say: ‘Well done’,” Pardew said. “Then hopefully at the end I’ll be able to shake his hand again and say: ‘unlucky’.”
“We (lower club managers) are under a certain amount of pressure to improve results, certainly to score more goals,”
“At top clubs you always have to win, that’s a different kind of pressure and Arsène has dealt with it with dignity for 20 years,”
“It’s a job well done, to be honest it is hard to find the words to do justice to what he has achieved in English football. He more than anyone else brought in the sort of professionalism we take for granted now. He arrived in an era when players were perhaps not as professional as they could have been and he changed all that.
“The other reason I admire him is because he has brought something else to the Premier League. His sides are always positive, trying to gain the upper hand and play in the right way. As we have just seen over the festive period lots of teams are happy not to have the initiative, they just concentrate on trying to stop their opponents playing. Arsenal are never like that. Arsène’s sides try to take the initiative in every game they play, even against Barcelona, and I don’t think he gets enough credit for that.”
It is hard to deny that Pardew is right. Even when the fans are screaming at Wenger to try and win ugly against obviously better sides, the boss will also have belief that the Gunners can outplay our opponents and try to attack without fear. Even if we lose we always bravely go for goals and look entertaining to neutrals.
Surely that deserves respect to have achieved that goal for two decades?
Sam P
[https://www.google.co.in/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=3&ved=0ahUKEwi4iZeym7TYAhVDMI8KHeKSC-YQqUMIJjAC&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.forbes.com%2Fsites%2Fbobbymcmahon%2F2017%2F12%2F31%2Fhow-liverpool-got-a-financial-jump-on-arsenal-even-though-the-gunners-generate-more-revenue%2F&usg=AOvVaw2QLqOEJ_1DMtvjwU9ABA5I] is good,have a look at it!
I still respect what he did for us in the past, but I currently do not respect him anymore as a person, and as a manager. I think that’s the best way I can put it.
I shouldn’t have to keep reminding people this, but Wenger’s longevity at Arsenal has nothing to do with sporting achievement.
Agreed 100%
Well said. Nothing to add really except I knew this was another pathetic article from Sam P.
The only way this man leaves is to be forced out like Mugabe.
Arsenal has even gone backwards like Zimbabwe.
Wenger is in charge and must go!
Out with Wenger!
Out with dictatorship!
@Eat Pie that is a good analogy and not many of the free world were praising Mugabe for hanging on and ruining his country.
OT: Zaha bossing the former Spud.
City need to have 3 players on him, worth a gamble and let Sanchez go in Jan?
Or let welbeck go and get Zaha, he is a better welbeck.
What a powerful run by Kevin Bruine the commentators say, yet there is no one round him and he is basically walking with the ball.
What a bunch of dummies that got their heads in City butt.
They will not be invincible, mark my words.
I know this is an Arsenal site, but city are rattled I’m loving it. Go Palace go.
this guy Sam p really loves arsene wenger.
but i have to admit you have a point on this article.
wenger deserves our respect,it is no small thing to manage a club like arsenal for that long.
he’s respected by all h iscounterparts , and some are absolute legends in the game, like Clough or Ferguson, but not some haters fools, so called “fans “,who are not even able to lead a warm up…. absolute disgrace
“his couterparts” sorry
You are making stuff up Clough has been dead for more than10 years.
Ivan he praised him before his deah
and even Guardiola praised him recently
Firstly Pep is a true gentleman and secondly he can afford to be generous to his inferiors as we are no threat to him.
No other manager can do what he has with the team or funds he has it will be impossible to get a better manager with this board in place . I only have respect for him
his death
That would have been 15 years ago when he we were a good team.
Most managers will publicly praise other managers no matter what they think of them privately. So don’t take this type of praise too literally. You tend to get their true feelings when things slip out. For instance a year ago when Fat Sam explained why Arsenal are so easy to score against.
If we all believed everything that these managers say then we would be thinking even worse things about the dinosaur than some of us currently do after listening to Maureen and Hughes.
fat sam is nowhere near wenger, he is more a rugby manager
I hate Fat Sam but these days he is a more effective manager.
Class is permanent, either we will face it or not…. the reason why Arsenal FC is still in her competing state is because of this man (Arsene). Let stop being self-centered no one of us love this club more than he does. Let’s keep backing him whatever the case may be…. He deserves to be praise and reference for his loyalty to the club and his players. The truth of the matter is that he cant please all the fans. Ever since Ferguson left, Man Utd have been a toothless bulldog, it might not be as easy as we think. He still needs me and you!!!
Well then you love him ,you hav hime and put him on your mantel piece if you wish. In fact I wish you would, assuming you live in AUSTRALIA or on the Moon! I CANNOT STAND THE SIGHT OF HIS SMUG FACE AND HEARING HIS STUPID CONTINUAL LIES.
Surely managing Arsenal over the last 14 years has been one of the easiest jobs of any type anywhere.
So let’s analyse:
1) Salary – £10.5 mil which is one of the highest.
2) Control – Control is absolute with nothing allowed to happen without the managers say so. Manager also is tight with the owner so can afford to waive 2 fingers at his CEO.
3) Finance – Much underrated here as this is the 6th richest club in world football.
4) Target – To stay in the EPL and make money for the owner.
5) Consequence of failure – With football target so low manager only has he to concentrate on making money for the owner.
So with no chance of the sack no matter what fans think why is it an achievement to still be at a club when he is making it worse each year.
I await the thumbs down from his worshippers.
Thumbs down for Wenger and his followers who can not remove his picture hanging above their bads.
Viva Arsenal free of Wenger and current Board!
palace get a pen in 93rd minute . to finally end citiys unbeaten run….
an blow it !! ffs
thanks 2017:thanks alot
Are you worried they will be unbeaten at the end of season? No way.
for the wenger haters, Palace isn’t that easy to beat
HE was well paid too over those years……including long periods of underachieving……….worse is hanging onto a job that he is failing at……….that has and will tarnish his average achievements on the field……….
SamP, let results in the league talk rather than writing such articles to sell Arsene Wenger. If you have the balls come out here and say what kind of results will make you challenge Wenger. On this forum, you are the only one who always have a one sided view even people with such extreme views. I think AKBs are exactly like Wenger and don’t want any targets and just want to talk about things from 15 years back.
Sam P , We know you are a lover of Wenger still . But to ask us, who detest and loathe all he has done in the last decade and the man who has regressed us year by year, to respect him is not going to happen, however much you will it and ask for it. The vast majority on here and of all Gooners want thim gone, most of us ASAP. Some, a fast dwindling number of even those who want him out, retain a sort of twisted affection for those days of long ago and long for him to bring them back, EVEN THOUGH they fully realise that is NOT going to happen. NOSTALGIA FOR THE HALCYON DAYS IS A STRONG PULL. But you either choose to live in the past or in the present and , since the present is ALWAYS THE ONLY TIME ALL HUMANS HAVE TO LIVE IN – THINK ABOUT IT – the realists among us , do exactly that where Arsenal is concerned. Those of us who live in the present also worry about the foreseeable future and what we see with Wenger we do not like one little bit. Yes , we all enjoyed those glory days but they have gone Sam P, never to return under the present regime. Whether or not you retain some affection for him, as you seem to or whether like me and many Gooners you just want him out by the quickest manner that can be achieved, those days are NOT COMING BACK. SO PLEASE, DO NOT INSULT OUR INTELLIGENCE BY ASKING US TO RESPECT SOMEONE WE CANNOT ABIDE.