Arsène Wenger has said that he is not obsessed with the thought of winning one last trophy at Arsenal as he celebrates his 20th anniversary with the club and distanced himself from the England job by reiterating his belief that the position should go to an Englishman.
Wenger, whose contract with Arsenal runs out at the end of the season, revealed that he will not base any decision about his future around going out on a high. While Sir Alex Ferguson retired after leading Manchester United to the Premier League title in 2013, Arsenal’s manager is not driven by creating the perfect ending.
“I am not obsessed by that,” Wenger said. “Would Ferguson have not have gone out on a high after the history? Time makes a difference with what the guy has done. He would still be the same great manager had he not gone out on a high. You don’t lose his experience just in the last year.
“One of the factors is that the club and supporters still want me and I still want to stay. What will make me want to stay is that I feel I can give more to the club. People know that if things go well my priority is this club. After I have to accept as well that if things don’t go well, maybe I do something else.
“If I look back, the way I manage today is not the same as it was five, 10 or 20 years ago. I accept that it can finish tomorrow. It’s a love story and you always expect a love story to last forever, but it can always stop suddenly.”
Wenger’s main focus is Sunday’s trip to Burnley, when Arsenal will look to extend their winning run to five matches. They have hit a neat groove in recent weeks, thumping Chelsea last Saturday and Basel in the Champions League on Wednesday, and Wenger is cautiously optimistic about his team’s development.
However Arsenal have struggled for consistency in the past decade and trail Manchester City by five points. Wenger, who said that Francis Coquelin could feature against Burnley after scans showed that the midfielder’s knee injury is not as bad as first feared, knows that his players still have much to prove.
“I like them because I think they are focused,” he said. “They have a good togetherness, they have a great concentration level. How far can we go? We don’t really know. But hopefully we can strengthen belief that we can do very well. We are at a bit of a turning point at the moment.
“I believe we are a bit more mature. The squad is strong. Let’s see. Maybe the Premier League is more difficult than ever this year. You have many big teams. The result against Chelsea helped us but we have to show we can be consistent and do well in the other big games.”
With Sam Allardyce losing his job as England’s manager this week, the discussion turned to national identity and whether Wenger still believes that the Football Association should steer clear of hiring a foreigner.
“I know God Save the Queen,” he said. “But I still think that the priority is for an Englishman to manage England. Because it looked always a bit bizarre if I manage England and play against France. I cannot sing the French national anthem and not the English one. It looks strange, especially in big countries.
Wenger was asked if he feels English rather than French these days. “I think a big part when I come back to London, I come back to home,” he said. “I’m not English, I am French. I feel French as well. But of course you do not spend 20 years in a country without identifying or getting used to some values or behaviours of the local culture.
“I do not want to give you some fruit for speculation. I am completely committed on the immediate. The priority is this club and what we want to achieve together until the end of the season.”
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