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Arsene Wenger reveals he doesn't keep any Arsenal winners' medals in endless pursuit to make himself a better coach

Arsene Wenger reveals he doesn't keep any Arsenal winners' medals in endless pursuit to make himself a better coach

If Arsenal beat Chelsea on Saturday it would be one of Arsene Wenger’s greatest achievements as a manager, in what could yet be his final match in charge. But even if they win, do not expect him to go home with his medal round his neck before he puts it in his own personal museum. Wenger would rather give the medal away, to someone to whom it would mean more. He is, in his own words, “not a back-looker”.

It was an interesting revelation from a manager who has had such a successful career. He has won titles and cups in England, France and Japan, as well as stacks of personal trophies. If he were to build a personal trophy room it would take over half a house. But he has no interest in any of that. Even as he heads into what surely must be the final phase of his career, he just wants to keep going.

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“I have no medal at home anyway, from anything,” Wenger said at his press conference on Wednesday. “You come to my home you will be surprised. There is no trophy, no medal, nothing. You would not even guess that I am a football manager. Apart from the fact that a football game is on!”

It says a lot for Wenger’s futurism and his altruism that he would always rather give his medal away to someone else. “I give them always out,” Wenger admitted. “There is always a guy at the club who did not get a medal. A member of staff. I have given it to him. So you are always a medal short and you will always find someone who takes it.” Tony Adams has said that he once saw Wenger throw an old medal into the bin. “I don’t remember,” Wenger said. “Don’t trust too much what Tony Adams says.”

It also explains why now, at 67 years old, and at Arsenal for 21 years, Wenger is desperate to keep going. He has the ambition, energy and drive of a much younger man and still thinks about where he can take his team to. He wants to get them back to the summit of English and European football, as unlikely as that sounds, and believes he is the right man to do it. Which explains why he wants a new two-year deal at Arsenal so much, not with a director of football, but with the same control he has always had.

Do not take his lack of medals at home to mean a detachment from football, but rather an obsession with getting better and better at coaching on it. Never has a man with so many laurels to rest on been so insistent on doing no such thing. He does not keep diaries, he does not watch old videos. Only new ones that help him to win.

“I am not separated from football,” Wenger said. “I am completely in football. I watch the game that is on on the night but I don’t look back what we have won, what we have done and all that. What we have lost.”

Wenger said that “maybe one day” he will have to look back, but not while he is still healthy and energetic. “It depends on my health,” he said. “I will not always manage but I will always be involved in the game.” For now it is the “human experiences” and the “shared emotions” that sustain him.

But the big question going into tomorrow, even bigger than who wins, is what happens next. Wenger has been deflecting questions about his future all season and even admitted last Sunday that doing so has damaged the team. There will be a board meeting next week that should resolve the question but, for now at least, everyone is still in the dark.

There has been a new contract on offer to Wenger for months, but whether he signs it next week remains to be seen. There is certainly a lingering sense of frustration with Arsenal that the issue has got this far.

“One of the big problems in the modern society is that the big companies sit there not any more to make the decisions that are good for the company but is it popular or not?” said Wenger. “I don’t care about that. I just want to always make a decision, is it right or is it wrong, is it good or not? All the rest for me is artificial debate. So I don’t care too much about all the rest.”