Arsene Wenger signed off his rein with a win, and then joked that he should have announced his retirement every week.
‘It’s a real special day,’ the Frenchman said after Pierre Emerick Aubameyang’s first-half tap-in gave the Gunners a 1-0 victory at Huddersfield to bring the curtain down on 22 years at the helm.
‘To keep my sense of humour I should have announced it every week that I will retire, because people have been so nice since I said that!’
Wenger also revealed that he had already had approaches from other clubs but would find it difficult to remain in the Premier League and manage against Arsenal.
‘I’m not ready for that at the moment,’ he said. ‘That would be very difficult, I’d stay at home that day. Maybe I don’t envisage that at the moment.’
‘I had offers, yes, of course,’ he added.
‘I had many offers. But at the moment, I have not said anything to anybody. I came out of a long process and you cannot just the next morning go somewhere else. It’s impossible. Maybe it’s better I go somewhere else (other than England).’ Wenger was given a tremendous reception by both sets of supporters.
‘I’d like thank people here and our fans,’ he said. ‘Huddersfield people showed a lot of class. It was a great day, a happy day, they celebrated to stay in the Premier League and my last game after 1,235 games and it’s maybe time, it was a special day and the players wanted to win the game. I want to thank everybody.’ Wenger bowed to the away support before kick-off, something he said was on the spur of the moment.
‘It was spontaneous,’ he said. ‘I know that we’ve disappointed the away fans this season, that many of them they live the whole week and use their spare money to travel up to games. It’s part of the respect. We had disagreements which I accept but we had one thing in common: we loved Arsenal Football Club and I wanted to share that with them today.’
Two airplanes carried banners overhead hailing Wenger, a far cry from the ‘Wenger Out’ displays over previous months.
‘They had the wrong banner out today,’ he joked.
Wenger believes his successor has plenty to work with.
‘I’ve loved working with this group and there is something that is waiting to come out,’ he said. ‘We were very close this season, despite all that, went to a League Cup semi-final, Europa League semi when we should have qualified, at home it was fantastic but away from home we need to improve and they will.’
COMMENTS