Arsene Wenger was a revolutionary who built teams for those who loved football

Lost in his recent malaise it should not be forgotten that Wenger was responsible for some of the greatest achievements English football has ever seen

It was on Wednesday that Arsene Wenger made a decision that came from some tension at Arsenal‘s top level, and then uttered the words that many at the club wondered whether they would ever hear: that he is leaving his job.

That will immediately change the mood around the Ashburton Grove stadium and London Colney training centre that stand as tangible landmarks to the French great’s success. It will go from the pressure that ultimately forced this resignation to pride at the rousing effect he had on the club, and the football it produced. It will go from a bad atmosphere to one of great grace, everyone willing the best possible send-off.

Everyone will also retell all those stories we’ve heard before – about the nutrition, about the fitness, about the scouting, about the different outlook – but what really stood out for some of Wenger’s first Arsenal players were some other words that they hadn’t heard before.

Take the story going right back to that very first Arsenal game, when Ian Wright scored twice at Ewood Park to beat Blackburn Rovers 2-0. After that match, Wenger went up to his forward and enthusiastically praised him for the quality of his finishes. It didn’t even seem like man-management to Wright either. It instead just felt like a genuine football lover’s appreciation for great player.

Wright and his teammates never got that from previous manager Bruce Rioch, and certainly never got it from George Graham. That was a different English era that Wenger came into, when the prevailing mindset driving teams was one of growling anger. British football was brutal. It was the ultimate school of hard knocks… and into that came someone offering a very different type of education.

Wenger was so different, and that had a hugely distinctive – and probably thereby disproportionate – effect.

The combination of all these qualities helped create excellent expressive sides, that were the natural product of the attitude that so struck Wright. Wenger made teams for those that loved good football.

He also made teams that won, and won an awful lot.

That shouldn’t be obscured by the almost self-defeating purism – the frustrating unbending commitment to those initial qualities – that did essentially deny him such victories later in his career. For all the natural talk about the stadium and the training ground serving as his legacy, their grandiose height should not overshadow the fact that Wenger was responsible for some of the greatest achievements English football has ever seen.

Wenger arrived in a very different English football than we know today (Getty)

He claimed a double at a time in 1997-98 when it was still such a historically rare feat, before then helping make it feel routine with a double double in 2001-02, before that unbeaten league campaign. Through that, he also became the first – and, in truth, only proper – long-term rival to the man who is arguably the greatest manager the game as a whole has ever known: Sir Alex Ferguson. It also helped creating something else that is so lasting, and hasn’t been as known in football as much as other sports. He helped forge a truly great rivalry, that is now talked of with such fondness by all, despite the utter rancour that fired it at the time. Wenger was part of one of football’s Borg-McEnroes, Lauda-Hunts…

He was to Ferguson what Joe Frazier was to Muhammad Ali. That is quite a legacy in itself.

It was on watching Manchester City this season, however, that something else struck one highly-respected coach.

The English side that Pep Guardiola’s have been most compared to are Wenger’s 2003-04 Invincibles, right down to the fact they will break records winning the domestic league, but were then eliminated in Europe by a domestic rival, but that goes beyond the superficial. It actually goes to the core of how the team works.

Wenger and Ferguson enjoyed the defining rivalry of the Premier League era (Getty)

This coach spotted how the fundamental approach of this great Guardiola side is the same as Wenger’s best: two central players commanding the centre of the pitch, two wide players going as far as possible outside with the other two coming in, to create chaos outside the opposition centre-halves but an array of passing options for what seemed the smoothest possible moves. For all these positions, read Patrick Vieira and Dennis Bergkamp, with Lauren and Robert Pires going outside, Ashley Cole and Fredrik Ljungberg going inside, and Thierry Henry there to finish.

This is what so many devastated opposition sides referred to as “the red arrows”, as Arsenal just reached paces and patterns that span them out of control.

This was Wenger’s ideal. There were endless revolutions on a pitch, to reflect the work of a genuine football revolutionary, who was willing to do things differently.

Wenger built an era-defining team in the late 90s (AFP/Getty Images)

The fact that Guardiola’s supreme football bears so many hallmarks of Wenger’s best proves that football moves in circles, but one fundamental that has been central to the French greats decline is that it moves in ever-increasing circles. It similarly can’t be denied that Guardiola has taken that blueprint to more sophisticated levels, using the most modern methods to maximise it. That is why they are ever-increasing circles, because evolutions in the elements around the game are used to enhance integral football ideas. Wenger’s initial methods at Arsenal were themselves further proof of this.

The problem is that most managers – or, perhaps more accurately, most revolutionaries – work in ever-decreasing circles. They get increasingly wedded to the ideas and approaches that first made them, utterly convinced they can be proved right again, to the point they’re just overtaken and those approaches become self-defeating.

This is precisely what happened with Wenger, in so many ways. Those strengths became weaknesses.

Wenger walks away leaving a unique legacy behind (Getty)

Take those first words to Wright. Where such encouragement was once the perfect complement to the core hardness in the Arsenal side, it by the end became the imperfect attitude that had been deeply implemented within the club. That “niceness” – that trust in talent – instead made Arsenal pushovers rather than a side brought to the glorious limits of their talent. Under-performing sides were allowed get away with too much, rather than coming away with the biggest trophies.

Wenger was just behind the times in other ways. Take the story from before the League Cup final humiliation against Manchester City. After a week of practicing with four at the back, and up against a manager and team that had so proven the modern necessity of players deeply understanding and drilling tactical plans, Wenger decided to go with three at the back in the 48 hours before the game. The surprise among the players was suggested with how many times they got caught out in that defeat.

There are so many such stories, and while Friday’s news means this feels like a time to celebrate player, the fact is that recent criticism is as fair as overall gushing praise.

The criticism is why he was under pressure, why he made this decision, why we are here. Wenger, however, is why Arsenal are where they are now.

He transformed one of English football history’s great clubs into one of the globe’s modern superclubs, and with so many triumphs along the way.

It is why he is one of the game’s historic greats.