At this afternoon’s press conference Arsene Wenger appeared to suggest that he did not control the timing of the announcement that he will leave Arsenal this summer.
Asked by a German reporter at his pre-Atletico Madrid press conference why he’d decided to call it quits when his contract has a year to run, he replied: “The timing was not really my decision. For the rest, I’ve spoken about it already.”
This evening, Wenger has released a statement clarifying his comments.
“After reaching agreement about my departure, I was happy for the club to decide when to announce. I wish to make it clear the timing of the announcement was right.”
The boss has issued the following statement:
“After reaching agreement about my departure, I was happy for the club to decide when to announce. I wish to make it clear the timing of the announcement was right.” pic.twitter.com/cN3inDnbn0
— Arsenal FC (@Arsenal) April 25, 2018
Why has he felt it necessary to make such a statement? We’re not so sure. Perhaps it was a slip of the tongue at the time. Or maybe there’s some kind of agreement with the club not to talk about the details of his departure for the time being. Who knows?
Watching the press conference at the time, he was in a very relaxed mood, making several quips as he sat alongside Danny Welbeck and fielded questions from a continental audience.
Perhaps we’ll find out when the boss writes that book he’s so often teased us with.
If he writes a book, I’ll be the first to buy and read it!
He will not write the book. From all his interactions you can clearly tell that he respects the privacy and reputations of others. A book containing any recounting of controversial situations or decisions taken will contravene that principle.
Presumably the book cannot be written until after next season as the Board will write that into his pay-off agreement. In fact, there could even be a more permanent non-disclosure clause?
Any NDA is irrelevant in Wenger’s case. Wenger has always treated the Arsenal organization as a family: any information told in confidence will never leave the club.
It is an aspirational trait in this world of detrimental gossip.
This book is going to answer so many of our questions..so many.
Its the club being pathetic, treat the man with some respect FFS. Why does Gazidis get not hate? He has to take a large share of the blame for how hes run the club surely
I have no real problem with Gazidis, as far as I’m concerned out of himself, Wenger and Kroenke he is the guy holding the club back the least.
There’s too many unknowns for us to put blame or give hate. Who knows what’s been going on?
Personally I’m sick of all the quarreling that’s been going on the last year’s, let’s move forward with some hope for the future of this club
The club is doing what it can to manage a dignified departure for him. They’ve bent over backwards not to sack him outright and he’s probably getting next year’s salary as a severance pay.
Wenger should have just referred the journos to his statement and moved on to the next question. Can’t blame the man for being honest though
@sirswoop – with the World Cup coming up the club really needs to be looking at managers now & it would have definitely leaked out. By announcing it now the club also hopefully allows fans to show up and thank Wenger for his great service to the club. would you have preferred the club simply announce Wenger was leaving in June?
To be fair, Gazidis is in charge of increasing Sales revenues and not in charge of the sporting side. Arsene did make his job easier because everyone in the whole world is interested in watching Arsenal games,(thats why we get the most televised games) which makes us an attractive option for sponsors and advertisers. We might have not won the a major trophy for 13 years but we have been constantly been in the top 7 richest clubs in Europe, and we wouldn’t have beenif it weren’t for Wenger
I think he just meant the exact day during the press conference and was taken out of context hence the ‘clarification’.
Really hope his next job is to spend a year writing that book.
Really hope his next job is to spend next season writing this book
Please add a Wright before your name. Would be totally ace if you did.
Football is a results and trophy oriented business.As said ,at any other top club he would have been axed years ago.
The problem is Arsenal had too much respect for him.
Hopefully the new guy will put improving the defence
his top priority .As for the fm let him take his pure soccer
elsewhere. One thing you can be absolutely sure is he
wont last long if he doesn’t win any trophy.
Incorrect. Football at the highest level is about values you see. It doesn’t matter if you win, it’s how you lose that matters. Well at least according to Wenger.
Football is about winning. Wenger believed that how you win still mattered, nonetheless. Don’t twist his words with your attitude. Not a single person in the Arsenal likes losing, and to claim that they do so is an insult to their character. They just keep losing a lot this season, and so he’s been forced to step down. That’s all there is to it, and there’s no stupid value or philosophy battle being fought. No matter how well you win, if you begin losing too much, it’s a problem. It’s impossible to have too much respect for what Wenger achieved… Read more »
Football, already has an innate values, hence ‘the spirit of a sports man’, which means’ there is always another time to win, don’t be depressed in your loss today’. That’s all! Any other values aside this is irrelevant because football is largely winning and today, big business. Wenger, ran Arsenal at later stages like a philosophical school. No team goes to a football match not having the mind to win. But the question is ‘ are you prepared to win’. We are doubtful of Athletico because we are weak at the back. It was Wenger’s call to strengthen the area… Read more »
Football about values. Church about football.
No, he never said such a thing. But values is important. Look at City, they have no values but a lot of money. No class, no dignity, its just an empty club with much cash.
I’m sure their fans had a blast this season watching their side dominating most clubs in EPL, breaking many records while at it.
They’re mostly new fans who feel entitled, so you’re correct to call them ‘fans’ rather than ‘supporters’.
Well we’ve 3 in the last 4 years which is better than most clubs so what’s your problem? Winning trophies is of course important but so is playing entertaining football which obviously doesn’t interest you
And when was the last time we played entertaining football.
against CSKA
When do we play entertaining football? It’s very rarely these days. Most of the time it’s slow laborious boring side to side passing unless we are playing at home against a relegation threatened team and even then we make hard work out of it. The entertaining football thing is really getting old now.
3 trophies in 4 years, and a potential first European trophy within reach isn’t good enough for him to see out his contract?? Why didn’t the/trophy-hungry blind mice simply follow the Boreinho and let the beautiful football continue at the Emirates a little. Anyone who was #WengerOut or staying away from home games despite purchasing a ticket should not celebrate Europa league win (fingers crossed). The other thing I hope these people will do is show the same impatience and trophy-hunger with the new manager, irrespective of his previous connections to the club, if any.
“…The other thing I hope these people will do is show the same impatience and trophy-hunger with the new manager…”
Oh they will. I won’t worry about that.
Really hope his next job is to spend 12 months writing this book
Blogger,Andrew Magan,please stop calling Wenger Boss! I find it distasteful! Call him Manager but not Boss. That word is repulsive !
You must be fun at parties
Is this a joke?
They keep asking him why now??? Before that it was are you still gonna be here, are you still gonna be here?? If they got fed up and gave them an answer to their persistent question, they are hounding them about the timing of the answer. Ridiculous. You can never win with these people!!!
It’s pretty straight forward comment that the media (and a few non-media fuckwits) are twisting.
He wouldn’t have announced it until the end of the season but the club decided they wanted to announce it for some kind of ‘farewell tour’.
End of.
I love Arsene Wenger with an irrational fervour. Cannot abide what’s happened…. the disgrace of this whole shabby affair outweighs any perceived trophy deficit!
The resignation contract he signed confirming he’s leaving would have almost certainly had a clause forbidding him from badmouthing the board in any way or indeed contradicting in any way the club party line that everything about his departure is mutual and amicable from both sides.
This ‘clarification’ is probably worth £8m to him.
Whilst you may be right (although it would probably have been in his original contract rather than a separate ‘resignation contract’) he’s both emotionally invested in the club and a classy individual, so I’m pretty sure any financial clause would be very secondary in his statement.
Is this just Wenger being misunderstood and/or misquoted yet again? The reports all day have been so annoying (i.e. wenger admitting he was practically sacked) What person in their right mind would, on the run up to one of the most important games of their career, would come out say they left because they were about to be sacked? I think this statement was an attempt to highlight it was the decision on the timing of the announcement of the resignation that was not in his control, not the actual decision to resign……two very different things with very different implications… Read more »
Meanwhile over in Mourinholand Mourinho says he respects Wenger and he hopes they can be friends. Well I hope for the sake of all things decent that Wenger mugs him right off on the 29th.
Already pre-pre-pre-pre ordered it on Amazon! Even before he’s written it.
THE BOOK
I am missing the “man” already. He should get a chat show? Just an idea…:-)