Arsenal’s recent fine form seems likely to earn Arsène Wenger both a new contract and a pay rise according to today’s newspapers.
The Daily Mirror claims Wenger will be offered a three-year deal worth £8 million a year – £500,000 a year more than his current contract, which expires at the end of the summer.
Wenger has just celebrated the 17th anniversary of his appointment as Gunners boss, making him the longest serving manager in English football, and is 63 years old.
The reported new deal would see him rule over the Emirates for more than two decades and easily see Wenger chalk up 1,000 games as Arsenal manager. He is already by some distance the longest-serving manager in the club’s history and its only manager from outside the UK.
The first half of his Arsenal tenure was studded with trophies – three league titles and four FA Cups – but the club has gone eight years without an honour since Patrick Vieira lifted the FA Cup in May 2005, though it has now qualified for the Champions League for fourteen consecutive seasons.
It is hard to imagine many, if any, of Europe’s other big clubs offering their manager a new contract after such a barren spell – but it is far more difficult to imagine Arsenal without Arsène Wenger.
Ultra-professional
Wenger’s appointment spearheaded the Premier League’s shift towards ultra-professionalism and its full-hearted embrace of foreign players and coaches.
Wenger revolutionised the club and its culture and is now seen as an integral part of the club’s fabric in much the same way Sir Alex Ferguson was at Manchester United before his recent retirement.
Although recent seasons have brought no trophies, it is hard to see how Wenger could have done better within the financial restrictions placed on him by the club’s expensive relocation from Highbury to the Emirates in 2006.
While some feel that to extend Wenger’s stay at this stage would be akin to rewarding eight years of ‘failure’, a larger group seem keen to ensure that the club signs up Wenger as soon as possible – perhaps conscious of the fact that Manchester United, under new manager David Moyes, currently stand 12th in the table.
Latest:
