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Wenger’s early days
- Updated: September 30, 2016
As Arsene Wenger celebrates 20 years in the job, we recall his early days at Arsenal with the club’s head of communications at the time, Sky Sports presenter Clare Tomlinson…
“At first,” admitted Arsenal captain Tony Adams, “I thought, ‘What does this Frenchman know about football? He wears glasses and looks more like a schoolteacher. He’s not going to be as good as George [Graham]. Does he even speak English properly?'”
Arsene Wenger had enjoyed a distinguished career in France, winning a title with Monaco and forging a reputation as an astute coach with a knack of developing players. But it says much for the insular nature of the English game that Adams’ view was the prevailing one.
Although the Evening Standard never did run the ‘Arsene who?’ headline, those words did appear on billboards around the capital. And yet, Wenger not only took it in his stride but two decades on he’s still at the helm. The longest-serving league manager by a decade.
Sky Sports News presenter Clare Tomlinson joined Arsenal as the club’s head of communications just weeks after Wenger’s arrival and worked closely with him in dealing with the demands of the English media. She could not have been more impressed.
“It was widely known that he was coming beforehand but I don’t think anyone in English football really knew who he was,” Tomlinson tells Sky Sports. “But he’s one of the most professional and intelligent men I’ve ever met.
“The players were a very tight-knit group under George Graham and then under Bruce Rioch there were slight changes but certainly the senior players were keen to know that he wasn’t going to come in and rip everything up.
“Of course, that was Arsene’s genius. He didn’t. He came in and he spoke to the senior pros and there was very much a continuity. He made them a part of what he was trying to achieve. He got them on side very, very early on.”
Nigel Winterburn was 32 when Wenger arrived but he soon realised he wasn’t …
