Arsene Wenger Quotations

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.

The moral values I've learnt in my life I've learnt through football.

We didn't think he would play on Sunday because he was suspended - that makes me think he has all the qualities to join Arsenal!

Football is an art, like dancing is an art - but only when it's well done does it become an art.

When you look at people who are successful, you will find that they aren't the people who are motivated, but have consistency in their motivation.

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.

I believe the target of anything in life should be to do it so well that it becomes an art. When you read some books they are fantastic, the writer touches something in you that you know you would not have brought out of yourself. He makes you discover something interesting in your life. If you are living like an animal, what is the point of living? What makes daily life interesting is that we try to transform it to something that is close to art.

I believe one of the best things about managing people is that we can influence lives in a positive way. That's basically what a manager is about. When I can do that, I am very happy.

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.'

If you have the money and you find the one player who can make you win and make the difference, no matter how expensive he is, you should do it. But there are not many players in the world who will make a real difference.

At a young age winning is not the most important thing... the important thing is to develop creative and skilled players with good confidence.

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

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

Sol has experience, pace and physical power, which nobody else has together.

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.

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.

Some are wrong because they are not strong enough to fight temptation and some some are wrong because they do not know.

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

In some ways England is more liberal than France, but I also find it more intrusive. But when you go abroad you have to accept the ways of where you live. I have to respect that.

You cannot say that you are happy when you don't win.

It's silly to work hard the whole week and then spoil it by not preparing properly before the game.

Young players need freedom of expression to develop as creative players... they should be encouraged to try skills without fear of failure.

The communist model does not work economically, we all realised that, but the capitalist model in the modern world also looks to be unsustainable.

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

Of course, we also have the responsibility to win games and the difficulty in the job is to combine both.

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.

I believe in work, in connections between the players, I think what makes football great is that it is a team sport. You can win in different ways, by being more of a team, or by having better individual players. It is the team ethic that interests me, always.

I also think we live in a competitive world, and I love competition.

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

I am, of course, delighted but there was never any doubt about Sol staying.

I think training of better Youth Coaches is essential.

In a competitive world, not everybody can follow the pace; you will leave people out. We now accept that we must take care of these people. You cannot let them die in the streets; people will not accept it. And that is right, too.

English players are as easy to coach. The problem is that the Premier League has the best players in the world, and statistically not all of them can be born in England. But we don't have enough English players: we are working very hard on it.

The best football players in the world still earn very little money compared to people who really earn money.

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

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

I am supposed to take the bullets and absorb them. Like a bear. A polar bear.

I do not think about the national team too much because footballistically it is not of too much interest.

If somebody stamps on your head in that way, you wouldn't say, 'thank you very much' and turn the other cheek. Only Jesus Christ did that.

The background looks like a lot of red cards.

In my job, you expect to suffer. That's why when I go to hell one day, it will be less painful for me than you, because I'm used to suffering.

In England, football is important for everybody.

Nobody will finish above us in the league. It wouldn't surprise me if we were to go unbeaten for the whole of the season.

If you don't question the officials' role then you've got to ask what they are doing

I have only been here since 1996 but between 1966 and 1996 England had thirty years without foreign players and didn't win any more competitions in that time.

I didn't know the English were good at swimming. I have been in this country for 12 years and I haven't seen a swimming pool.

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

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?

As a non-Arsenal player I would say Ryan Giggs is my Premier League player of the decade because he has combined style with winning. Also I feel sorry he could never attend the World Cup, somewhere where people get a lot of compliments when they do well.

It is always a danger when you have a big game ahead, but there is only one way to prepare well for our Champions League game - and that is to do well tomorrow. Therefore, I feel there is a lot at stake for us tomorrow. It is a massive game for us.

If I left I would feel a deserter - like the guy who walks away from the army once there is a war. I am highly committed to this club. I love what I do here and love the spirit of the team.

Thierry Henry could take the ball in the middle of the park and score a goal that no one else in the world could score.

I think we live in a very competitive world, and I love competition.

Unfortunately apparently I am to blame because I don't produce enough English players.

Sometimes I see it [a foul by an Arsenal player], but I say that I didn’t see it to protect the players and because I could not find any rational explanation for what they did.

I have been accused of not taking seriously the FA Cup on Saturday. I have won four times the FA Cup. Who has won it more? Give me one name.

I don't kick dressing room doors, or the cat - or even journalists

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...'

Sometimes now, when I watch continental games on television, I'm a bit bored. I ask, 'where is the intensity?'

If you want to win a horse race, you need your horse to be 100%.

If I were going to war I would want to be alongside an Englishman not a Frenchman. The Frenchman would think too much.

Messi's like a PlayStation. He can take advantage of every mistake we make. He made the impossible possible. He has something exceptional. He has six or seven years in front of him, touchwood that nothing happens to him, and he can reach unbelievable levels.

I don't think it's because of my eyes, my beautiful eyes. (on Henry staying at Arsenal for the money)

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.

My job is to give people who work hard all week something to enjoy on Saturdays and Wednesdays.

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.

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

You ask me: 'Was he a fair player?' I say: 'No, I'm sorry, for me he was not a fair player.' I just think I respect him highly as a quality player. I did not like some things he did on the football pitch and I have the right to say that. It's not because you are older, suddenly, that you are a saint.

You build a player like you build a house. You start with the foundations. The fundamentals.

Everyone thinks they have the prettiest wife at home.

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.

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

Ferguson's out of order. He has lost all sense of reality. He is going out looking for a confrontation, then asking the person he is confronting to apologise. He's pushed the cork in a bit far this time.

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.

I am in a job where you always look in front of you. Unfortunately, the older you get, the less distance there is in front of you.

I'm French. I have not become an Englishman. I have the impression of living on an island called Arsenal. If you fancy a sightseeing tour of London, don't ask me. You would get lost.

If you eat caviar every day it's difficult to return to sausages.

Messi is a Playstation.

I know how important it is to have a helping hand.

If you buy a man who is half dead, everybody may be happy off the field, but on the field you'll have major problems

Fair play is an English word. It is not a French word, and it has been copied all over the world. Unfortunately, it does not function any more here.

Who is the Best Player in the World? Leo Messi. Who is the Best Player Ever? Leo Messi!

We have tried to get closer to them, but we never copied anybody, we always tried to play our football

As far as I'm concerned, this guy should never play football again. The answer you normally get after a tackle like that is 'he is not the type of guy who does that.' It's like a guy who kills one time in his life - it's enough. You have a dead person. This tackle is absolutely horrendous.

What makes daily life interesting is that we try to transform it to something that is close to art.

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.

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.

We do not buy superstars. We make them.

What makes him special? He has a mixture of physical talent and technical ability, as well as remarkable intelligence and above all a great passion for the game.

At some clubs success is accidental. At Arsenal it is compulsory.

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.

The score is high and very brutal but does not reflect what we saw on the pitch. The first shot on goal was a goal. The second was an own goal. The third was straight after half-time. They defend like mad and they catch us on the break.

A company works best when everybody does the job he is paid to do.

It's a strange atmosphere always over there, it is darker and less glamorous, and you don't feel as high. It is a different kind of test - can you raise your level in a less exciting environment and perhaps still a very difficult one?

What motivates me is an ideal of thinking about how football should be. And to try to get near this way of playing. And to try to improve all aspects of my personality that can help me get near this ideal way of playing football.

I take pride in the fact that people go home having felt that for 90 minutes today, life is beautiful - and that's it, basically. That's why professional football exists.

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.

When you represent a club it's about values and qualities, not about passports.

The real revelation of a player's character is not in his social life but in how he plays. In my social life I can hide my real personality.

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