Arsene Wenger Quotes

Arsene Wenger offers candid, grand reflections on football, sports and team dynamics for anyone craving insight.

56 quotes

1. I'm ready to take the blame for all the problems of English football if that is what he wants.

2. We've been remarkably consistent, haven't lost a game and we have played stylish football. We have entertained people who just love football.

3. Gerard (Houllier's) thoughts on the matter echo mine. He thinks that what the national coaches are doing is like taking the car from his garage without even asking permission. They will then use the car for ten days and abandon it in a field without any petrol left in the tank. We then have to recover it, but it is broken down. Then a month later they will come to take your car again, and for good measure you're expected to be nice about it.

4. 'When you give success to stupid people, it makes them more stupid sometimes and not more intelligent'

5. When I first came to Arsenal, I realised the back four were all university graduates in the art of defending. As for Tony Adams, I consider him to be a doctor of defence. He is simply outstanding.

6. When you're dealing with someone who only has a pair of underpants on, if you take his underpants off, he has nothing left - he's naked. You're better off trying to find him a pair of trousers to complement him rather than change him.

7. It's like you wanting to marry Miss World and she doesn't want you, what can I do about it? I can try to help you, but if she does not want to marry you what can I do?

8. It's like a child who is used to having ice cream whenever he wants. When it doesn't come when he asks he tends to get confused and nervous

9. I was surprised by the resources they find. They are amazing. It doesn't get any worse than losing a Champions League game the way we did, but I felt the way they responded was absolutely magnificent.

10. I am still hopeful we can go through the season unbeaten - a frightening thought.

11. We wanted tonight to be a shift of power, and to take the trophy back to Highbury.

12. They are real fighters. We can improve our team play. We can do better at home (Premiership), better in Europe and better in the Worthington Cup.

13. Any man who concentrates his energies totally on one passion is, by definition, someone who hurts the people close to him.

14. We were very frustrated last year. We have shown a lot of strength to come back here - beating Liverpool and Newcastle on the way.

15. We were considering him (Ruud van Nistelrooy) and Francis Jeffers and, in the end, we went for Jeffers.

16. If I give you a good wine, you will see how it tastes and after you ask where it comes from.

17. 'Despite the global warming, England is still not warm enough for him.'

18. 'Everyone thinks they have the prettiest wife at home.'

19. Consistency is the quality of the Champions and that's what we want to be. To win like we did today against a team like Leeds shows that we are really up for it and hungry.

20. I believe that this team has a great future, and I'm sure we will show it next; if not this season.

21. Errr I didn't see it.

22. The guy should never ever play football again

23. Of the nine red cards this season we probably deserved half of them.

24. I think in England you eat too much sugar and meat and not enough vegetables.

25. I lived for two years in Japan and it was the best diet I ever had. The whole way of life there is linked to health.

26. Their diet is basically boiled vegetables, fish and rice. No fat, no sugar. You notice when you live there that there are no fat people.

27. As a coach you can influence the diet of your players. You can point out what is wrong.

28. If you do not believe you can do it then you have no chance at all.

29. He is a man of his word - the sort of man you want at your club for a long time.

30. He can eat, talk, sleep and drink football, and then come back for more.

31. Arsene has undoubtedly been one of the biggest influences on the modern-day Premiership. His 10 years at Arsenal have flown by, and there haven't been too many bad times. It was an absolute pleasure to play under him and I'm sure the players who are currently in the squad would agree.

32. For a while, you could decide when you loan the player out whether he plays against you or not, and I always decided that he could play against us. But I must say I didn't get any protection from the media because when the player I loaned out scored against us, it's 'aaahhh, look at him, stupid...'

33. As a club, we have an educational purpose: to give back to those people who love Arsenal so that they learn moral values from our game and how we behave.

34. He made the impossible possible.

35. Everyone plays the ball over the top and, at the moment, we only concede goals from crosses or balls over the top. I feel we will adapt to that.

36. Spare me the articles about how nice Shawcross is because that was a horrendous tackle. People say we don't fancy the physical side of it, but this is the result. If you see a player getting injured like that, it's not acceptable.

37. For me, motivation is a person who has the capability to recruit the resources he needs to achieve a goal.

38. I think generally the Japanese players have more intensity in practice but generally I do the same things.

39. I would be much more annoyed if we hadn't won the game. As a manager, you have to see the positives and I think Pires has a vaccine for the rest of his life.

40. We played a whole season unbeaten but you did not see me every week jumping on the tables. Once it's over it's over and you do in the next one as well as you can. Plenty of managers who have won the Champions League will not be considered great managers.

41. Everybody has a different opinion in this league and nobody is a prophet. I personally don't know who will win the league. I managed 1,600 games so, if Nani knows, he must be 1,600 times more intelligent than I am.

42. People who work make the world live better and to reward these people well is normal. Yet they are not the people who are the wealthiest.

43. I believe the target of anything in life should be to do it so well that it becomes an art.

44. I think in the future we need to look at our youth department to provide more players for the first team think it is important for a club to have a good amount of players that have roots with the club and region.

45. I believe I do my job the way I have to do it.

46. Sometimes you have to swallow the unswallowable.

47. My target is to make the players as rich as possible within the financial constraints of the club. My target is not to give them less money. I'm happy to make them rich.

48. If I go into a season and I say, 'For f***'s sake, if we don't win anything, they will all leave,' I have already lost. The problem of the media is always to imagine the worst. The problem of the manager is always to imagine the best.

49. Work on your strong points because they are what made you.

50. No matter how much money you earn, you can only eat three meals a day and sleep in one bed.

51. Private life is private life. Off the pitch, there is private life, and the rest is social life, where of course you have to behave responsibly.

52. The background looks like a lot of red cards.

53. One of the things I discovered in Japan was from watching sumo wrestling. At the end you can never tell who has won the fight, and who has lost, because they do not show their emotion because it could embarrass the loser. It is unbelievable. That is why I try to teach my team politeness. It is only here in England that everybody pokes their tongue out when they win.

54. To achieve great things you have first to believe it.

55. Maintain that motivation to go from A to B and to keep your focus on that target without any weakening. That is called tenacity; stamina in your motivation.

56. A manager is a guide. He takes a group of people and says, 'With you I can make us a success; I can show you the way.'