Few modern managers have had as profound an impact on one club as Wenger, whose long reign ultimately will be remembered more for the glorious history than underwhelming end
La Fin. And so the credits finally roll. Like reaching the end of some heaving biopic, it may take a while for Arsène Wenger to feel able to shake himself back into the real world, to emerge blinking from that life intensely lived as manager at Arsenal Football Club, to take off the red and white spectacles and not assess everything through that prism.
Finally, now, he has reached that point that for so long seemed impossible, the trigger which has pushed the endgame button. The mantra that he would always respect his contract, the stubbornness that made it so implausible that he one day would do that, has been blown. The debate bubbled and frothed around him for years, for quite a lot of that turbulent second half of his tenure in London N5, but the truth is it was something that Wenger could not easily judge for himself because he was always so immersed. Bob Dylan caught the mood in inimitable style in one of his piercing love songs: “I could stay with you forever and never realise the time.” Wenger’s collaboration with Arsenal sucked them in deep, which is why, for club and man, this break will shudder through the both of them. Moving on, after such a long spell entwined, will be strange.
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