Arsene Wenger says his preference is to stay at Arsenal at the end of the season even though rumours abound that he could be tempted by offers from abroad.
The Frenchman, who is out of contract in the summer, has made it clear he intends to keep managing at the highest level for a couple more years whether it’s at the Emirates or elsewhere.
In recent days the 67-year-old has been linked with Barcelona, whose manager Luis Enrique confirmed he’ll be leaving in July, Real Madrid and to an unnamed club in China that reportedly offered a contract worth in excess of £30 million a year.
“No [I’ve not made a decision],” Wenger told press ahead of Saturday’s game with Liverpool when asked about his future.
“I think there is no need to come back on that at the moment.”
He added: “My preference has always been the same and will remain the same. I’m not looking for jobs in other clubs or for the jobs of other people, I just focus on me getting to the next level and trying to improve.
“I think that competent managers always try to improve. They always try to see what they can do better and reinvent themselves. That’s what I try to do. That’s basically it.”
Asked about Enrique’s decision to announce his impending Nou Camp exit in the middle of the season and whether it could take its toll on the Barcelona squad, Wenger continued:
“No, not really. I believe that the players have the team targets. I don’t think it will be detrimental, it can be positive as well.”
He was slightly more tetchy when asked about the story linking him with a move to China.
“This press conference is about the game at Liverpool, not about my own future or about what I turned down or not down.”
Wenger has previously suggested he’ll make a decision on his future in March or April.
Our manager is a true gooner. We may miss the days when our manager is hugely successful but stays with us through thick and thin. Even legends like Thierry left us :/
This is wholeheartedly agree with. While I would like to be truly competitive again and have, quite frankly, lost confidence in AW to build the squads he did of old, he IS one of us. Whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing I’m not sure, but he didn’t leave when there was no money, nor did he leave when players he dedicated his reputation to let him down.
I want him on the board, not at another club.
Absolutely agree. He has earns that.
I WANT HIM TO STAY
Well said mate!!! I could never hate AW like some clowns do!!! He is one of us!!! A place on the board would be awesome I think!!!
I don’t think he can make us truly competitive again but at the same time I’m kind of in no rush to see this era end as I do think he’s class and I like it that we’re different to all other PL clubs. We always behave with class and I’m proud he represents our club. Time will see to it that he goes and then we can become like all the other clubs jumping on the merry go round of managers and reactionary sackings, but until then I feel happy to have him at the club as we’ll never… Read more »
If & when Arsenal “becomes like other clubs jumping on the merry go round of managers and reactionary sackings”, it will be a very sad time indeed.
We’re better than that, and have an Arsenal way of doing things. We should keep our core values, no matter what.
we have gone 3 years without a league right…. surely we can’t count the days of stadium misery… right?
While I think he will ultimately retire from management and join the board, I don’t think he is quite ready to do that yet. Personally, I think he will end up choosing our next manager, my gut feeling is it will be an ex-player, I fully expect Wenger has his eye on one or two. Wenger, for me should stay on for another 3 years while those ex-players gain their experience ahead of us welcoming them back to the club. Bergkamp, Freddie, Viera all possibilities. Even Arteta. What I don’t want us to do is enter the manager merry go… Read more »
Somebody please reiterate those intelligent words to the tw@t that says ‘Blud’ on arsenalmoanersTV
Please Mr Wenger just retire. As scintillating and progressive as your style was, its now been countered so dramatically that the likes of Pep and Jose can defeat us so effortlessly, exposing the weaknesses of our footballing style with consummate ease. And as you refuse to adapt or evolve in any way whatsoever, you’re just a relic now. Footballs moved on, you have to too.
I agree with you Mein Bergkampf. As much as I respect him, and I really do, he is not improving really. I thought he was at the beginning of the season (bar the L’pool game) but he showed that things are the same this season. And I would not want him in the Board, as he would have too strong influence on everything happening at the club, and I don’t believe that he would be able to let go then, and let the new coach express himself. I think that would influence the new head coach as well and would… Read more »
I feel using the Man U example is slightly reductive. Admittedly it went very wrong for them but this was a team in total disarray. 3 managers and £200+ million and it’s still looking pretty ropey. I’d like to think Wenger will leave us in slightly better nick and should definitely have a say in who succeeds him. I just worry that the longer he leaves it, with more and more nights like Bayern, his incredible reign will start to become ever increasingly tarnished. If you were an 18 year old Arsenal fan right now, what would you actually remember… Read more »
A very small part of me would like Wenger to go to Barcelona and win everything, sticking two fingers up at the naysayers.
exactly same here
Excellent ! I am with you all the way. Big Club ! Huge Ambition ! What could go wrong ? Well just the small point that they will actually insist on results and achievements come the seasons end. And a top four finish won’t cut it. Wenger will then be – as he should but isn’t now – under the same demands as every other comparable top flight Manager. He won’t be swanning around the Nu Camp like he owns it waiting for something to turn up. So if he really is any good – still – Barcelona is just… Read more »
A very big part of me wants him to go to Barcelona.
That’s the least that you lot deserve, including a few decades of reverse St.Totteringham for good measure.
After the Bayern game I wanted him gone. Let a few days pass and I am not so sure anymore. So what is it then? What is the truth? I dont know anymore. Never knew. But I want him to renew his contract. Right? I like sandwiches.
Wenger has sacrificed a lot of potential personal glory by sticking with us.
Could have left Arsenal in the lean years while we were building the Emirates and joined a Real or PSG and possibly won a UCL. Similarly passed up the opportunity to manage his home nation France and potentially lead them to WC/EC glory.
I know loyalty doesn’t count for a lot in football these days but the guy truly loves the club.
Whether that grants him an unlimited stay regardless of result is an argument for another time…
Id be so happy for him if he went to Barca and signed off with a champions league
Aye, just like Henry.
I’d like it even more if he stayed on and signed off with a Champions League!
SIGN DA TING!
Please sign on for another 20 years..
One Arsene Wenger. We would not see football so beautifully without him. He’s an artist.
I will be very sad when Wenger eventually retires. Hopefully it will be of old age.
Wenger is a legend.
Wenger won’t be sacked and he has said he would like to stay, so I guess that settles it then. He will be our manager for the near future, so we the fans (whether you are WengerIn or WengerOut) all have to rally behind him and the team to ensure we bring the much needed silverware to the Emirates.
Do you not realise that after many years of near misses and hidings by top 4 and champions league clubs that many fans are unable to rally behind the team under the current management because they know deep down there isn’t going to be any major success at the end of the season. It’s not that they hate the manager, but they acknowledge the consistent shortcomings and have become apathetic due to the constant reluctance to change
These aren’t the kind of fans I want at my club.
Well tough. Approximately half of Arsenal supporters want a change of management and are perfectly entitled to wish that after years of stagnation. Those who want change want Arsenal to improve, not remain as they are. The same can’t be said for the likes of you, who unequivocally support the manager remaining despite no improvement in fortunes for years
You’re wasting your time Don. Sadly too many are Arsene Wenger fans not arsenal fans
Yes, you’re wasting your breath mate. This website attracts the pro-Wenger fans so therefore the comments are not representative of the fanbase as a whole.
If you go to other websites (like Le Gr*ve) you will find there are majority are ardent Wenger out fans.
Some other Arsenal websites are about half and half so quote balanced. But Arseblog News is definitely where the majority of pro-Wenger fans come.
I think there are plenty of dissenting voices on here, but what we don’t do is allow the vitriol and abuse that other sites do, so perhaps that makes people think it’s all sweetness and light.
There are lots of people who comment here who want a new manager, but they don’t call him a French Cunt or a Fraud when they talk about it.
Many fans are able to get behind their team despite not achieving ‘major success’ every season.
Your average supporter from around the country from Premier League to Conference still manages to find enjoyment and not turn against their manager/team in leaner times.
I’m with James – we don’t want your type at our club. Maybe you do make up 50% but you are the 50% that give our fanbase a bad name.
It’s not that supporters don’t wamt to support the team. That’s nonsense and is evident by fans who want a managerial change continuing to go to games. The issue is, many supporters have seen Arsenal fail to maintain a title challenge or fail to progress past the last 16 of the Champions League time and time again, well teams in direct competition to us have achieved success. Fans can wish the best for their team without having the belief that they will achieve success. By no means is Arsene Wenger the only issue at this club, but to suggest fans… Read more »
Your articulate point has no place here!
You’ll be told to support someone else or that you are not a true fan because you actually want and expect better from your club
For some it very well may be blind faith in the manager. For others it is definitely more a matter of being completely done with the boorish, single focus negativity and only having one point of view in all of the comments repeated over and over and over and over and over until they’ve just heard enough.
No one should be told to go support another club. But the perma-negative moaning and singular agenda being brought in relentlessly off-topic with nothing else to offer is something I am so completely done with.
But let me follow that saying I know that does not apply to all of the folks who voice their discontent by any means.
Don, the problem is that fans who demand managerial change mid-way through a season are a major distraction. It distracts from the task at hand, it distracts the players, and it clearly distracts the fans themselves from supporting the club fully and completely (people want to see Wenger, and by extension, the club fail because it serves their agenda for change). Wenger fields more questions each week about his position than he does about our impending match. Now, were we facing relegation like Leicester, or sitting midtable with noxious fumes permeating the dressing room like Chelsea last season, then banners… Read more »
I’m hoping he’ll stay and be properly supported by the board to strengthen the squad in the summer. If he does go (which I consider unlikely) the owners and CEO have some serious problems to deal with. I’m not at all confident they’ll know how to run the club without AW around.
What constitutes “properly strengthen”?
By all accounts, we had one of the strongest squads at the beginning of the season.
Surely the issue is now moving on some dead wood players and getting a more clinical edge into the team rather than spending money just for the sake of it?
Clinical edge involves spending considerable amounts of money. For example, there is no doubt that Kante or Fabregas would have been better than (the far cheaper) Elneny. We could have bought both and didn’t. I’m also sure Ozil and Sanchez will want more money to extend their contracts.
Fabregas went ‘On Strike’ to move away from this great club.
What message do you think re-signing him would have sent to the other players?
Maybe something like “It’s OK to leave us for your dream club and we’re here when it all goes tits-up”… Not something any club would want it’s players to think.
Really re-signing Fabregas was fuck all to do with money…
Wenger out, Wenger in, let me begin,
The patience in old Arsene is really wearing thin,
We’re in a little pickle, our fanbase is so fickle,
I’d love to give our manager a.. Tickle.
Jump around.. Jump around.. Jump up jump up to get down.
Great. He decides whether he stays anyway and his preference is to stay. Another 2 years of groundhog day!
Odd quote in that he’s always looking to improve and that’s what competent managers do. We keep making the same fucking mistakes
Wouldn’t last more than a season at any other club
What a load of dick.
How quickly people can put embarrassments like the Bayern game behind them and than insist the manager warrants a new contract. A couple of weeks without football and a win over a non league team should have no effect on the outlook of whether the manager should stay and leave. I believe the manager want a change, but it is those who after one or two victories who insist everything is fine again that are most vocal and quick to bash those who don’t support the manager, despite the inevitability that another major loss is just weeks away and that… Read more »
*majority want change
*loud embarassing minority
Completely agree. It is like the Bayern game never happened. We are pleased with the ceiling of top four and a good spanking in CL? Never having a proper chance of a PL title? Good then.
Its really difficult for me to see him go, we are arsenal , our football, our club has a “soul” . but listen to what he is saying, he is practically asking us to give him a chance to reinvent himself.
Lets forget about in or out polls, staying or going lets get behind the team and the manager till the end of the season then is the time to reflect “COME ON YOU GUNNERS”
Right. So he doesn’t want to manage another club. He also said he will manage next year. And there’s a contract extension on the table.
I think there’s not much uncertainty around this.
My preference for the past +10 years is for you Arsene to go, and am not the only one
To me this man is the only Arsenal Manager (18 year old), and even though there have been various bad results, I feel like the benefits on the whole outweigh the consequences. The club, however, has stagnated, and need change. This, in my opinion leads to another problem, as after he leaves, I think our collapse will be comparable to that of Manchester United, with that Moyes debacle. I once read an article, however, explaining that Arsenal might benefit from a defensive Manager as our team is deadly going forward, especially with fast, mobile strikers (Alexis, Wele, Perez) but would… Read more »
He inherited one set of defenders and then built the Invincibles defence after that…
I really hope Wenger joins another team and wins the champions league/ league title. For all his service to the Arsenal the man deserves some personal glory. And for a change it’ll be good to see a bunch of players who’ve got AW’s back as opposed to the other way around.
So he said previously that he will be managing somewhere next season. And now hes said Arsenal is always his first choice.
This means the only way he leaves is if the board sack him.
That seems very unlikely to me. He’ll be back.
So a 67 year old man worth what 100-200 mil, would rather stand out in the rain with a stopwatch -sad.
Whilst any players who want to win a serious trophy has to leave (Van Persie, Fabregas etc) Christ even Clichy & Nasri left and won the EPL. Is he so deluded to think he can compete & win things anymore.
Fake News! His preference is his big ego and inability to let go… #WengerOut !!!!!!!!
Win the FA Cup and leave on an incredible high. Hope so. I love Wenger but he has not delivered in the last 2-3 years. Bit of bad luck, bit of poor defending, bit of time has moved on, and the league is no longer a three horse race. If he stays, I will support him but I feel it is time for him to move to Barca and smash Man U/Chelsea/Man City/Bayern 6-1 in the final next season. Or Simone rages us to the trophy 5-1 over Bayern.
He will always be an arsenal legend but It really is time for Wenger to move on. We are in need of a fresh start , new ideas and a title challenge. Sadly he can not lead us in a title challenge again, things have gone stale and the joy is gone from our football.
Let’s get somebody who plays open football but is strong in tactics and can get the best out of this squad.
When all talk is about Arsene going to Barca or not, I think a better discussion is Is Luis Enrique good for us!! ?