‘WENGER
HAS INFORMED PLAYERS HE IS LEAVING’
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R
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eports in Italy
have revealed that Arsene Wenger has told his players that he will quit Arsenal
at the end of this season.
According to
Italian football journalist, Tancredi Palmeri, the Frenchman has informed the
team members about his decision but has yet to have a meeting with the club’s
board to inform people running the club as well.
Arsenal are
reported to have offered Wenger a two-year contract extension although the
Frenchman seems intentioned to part companies with the North London club after
spending over 20 years with the Gunners.
Wenger’s Arsenal faced Bayern Munich
yesterday with the impossible task of subverting the first leg’s verdict as
Bayern Munich trashed the Gunners 5-1 in an Allianz Arena clash three weeks
ago.
Many Arsenal fans
will celebrate this news although Palmeri insists that the club’s board has yet
to be informed about Wenger’s decision and that “everything can still happen.”
Also yesterday,
Gilberto Silva became the latest Arsenal great to say his former manager Arsene
Wenger has reached the end of the road.
The World Cup-winning
midfielder, a cornerstone of Wenger’s ‘Invincible’ league champions of 2003-04,
believes that a new breed of Premier League managers, including Chelsea’s
Antonio Conte, Manchester City’s Pep Guardiola and Liverpool’s Jurgen Klopp –
have the energy the 67-year-old lacks after over two decades at the Arsenal
helm.
“I feel that the time
has come,” the 2004 Premier League champion told Sport 360.
“The more the past is
coming to a close, the more his time is coming – not because he can’t do the
job any longer, but, perhaps because the other clubs have changed their way of
working, the way of doings things.
“He hasn’t changed
much, he hasn’t changed his way of working – not because he doesn’t want to,
but it is not so easy to compete with clubs who spend a lot of money every
season.
“Wenger has spent a
lot more years than them (Conte, Guardiola and Klopp) in the Premier League.
They are younger and motivated and they have a lot of energy to look around and
source ways to win against Wenger.
“He has his own way
of working, in which he believes. Irrespective of whether you are either a
young or an old coach, you have to believe in something, and that’s what he
does.”
Gilberto is not the
only member of the Invincibles to have criticised Wenger, whose contract
expires at the end of the season, in recent weeks. After last month’s 5-1
defeat former Arsenal defenders, Martin Keown and Lee Dixon said they believed
the Frenchman’s time at the club was up. READ MORE
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