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Arsene Wenger set to leave Arsenal if the club appoints sporting director
Arsene Wenger has ridiculed the prospect of working alongside a director of football and made it clear that he will only stay as Arsenal manager if he retains final power on all sporting decisions.
Arsenal have been actively assessing options for a new sporting director position to potentially work alongside Wenger – and chief executive Ivan Gazidis had told fans that this summer should be a “catalyst for change” – but the Frenchman is adamant that he will not fundamentally alter how he works.
Asked about the club appointing a director of football figure, Wenger said: “No. I don’t know what director of football means. Is it somebody who stands in the road and directs play right and left? I don’t understand and I never did understand what it means.”
It was then put to him that there might be some restructuring around key positions. “No, no, no,” he said. “Sorry, no. I’m not prepared to talk about that. I’m the manager of Arsenal Football Club and as long as I’m manager of Arsenal Football Club, I will decide what happens on the technical front. That’s it.”
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It is a situation that now clearly suggests considerable distance between the respective visions for Arsenal of Wenger and Gazidis.
The bottom line, however, is that the ultimate decision on how the club now proceeds will rest with majority owner Stan Kroenke. Telegraph Sport first revealed that Arsenal were looking at sporting director options back in March and, while the timescale on any future appointment was never defined, it did signal a desire both to review how the club worked and prepare potentially for Wenger’s departure.
Wenger has said that he wants to stay on as Arsenal manager next season, with the club having responded by saying that the decision must be “mutual”.
Final decisions are unlikely before the end of the season, particularly with Arsenal still able to finish in the top four and also preparing for Wenger’s attempt to win an all-time record seventh FA Cup.
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Arsenal play Southampton on Wednesday night when they are facing the prospect of being without captain Laurent Koscielny due to a calf injury, although Granit Xhaka and Danny Welbeck are expected to be available.
Wenger does not expect the club’s transfer planning to be significantly impacted by whether or not the club does now qualify for the Champions League, although he does accept that a longer absence would be significant.
“We are in a strong financial situation and the weight of the Champions League today is less big than it was years ago,” he said. “For me it’s important because we want to play at the top level and the top level is the Champions League.
"Financially or negotiation-wise, it will not have a huge impact, but we want to play with the best and against the best, and that’s the Champions League.
“It can impact if on a longer spell, you are not in there. At the moment we are not on that mode. We want to qualify and we want to give ourselves a chance to be in there.”
Wenger also stressed that his focus was now solely on the final five matches of the season and all outstanding player contract negotiations would be concluded during the summer. “Let’s not forget that we have 63 points,” he said. “The past five games, we’ve won four, so overall we’ve had a bad spell but we’ve recovered from it.
"We have to show now that we can be consistent until the end of the season.”
Wenger also acknowledged that the future of frustrated striker Lucas Perez would be decided by whether he could guarantee game-time next season.
“He’s a top-quality striker and I couldn’t give him the games that he wants and that he deserves,” he said.
“I feel sorry for him on that front, but we have more strikers available now because we had the situation where Giroud was not clear at the start of the season, we didn’t know when Welbeck would come back, and in the end there was a congestion there.
"If I’m the manager, I would love to keep him. We have to sit down together and see if he has a reasonable chance to play next season or not.”