Arsene knows?

Arsenal’s heartbreaking European exit could be followed by the final nail in their Premier League hopes tomorrow at Manchester United. Does this double disappointment have any implications for Arsene Wenger, and his footballing philosophies, asks Tony Leen.

EVEN in the unthinkable event of Arsene Wenger being solemnly called into the chairman’s office at Arsenal, he’s unlikely to read the signals.

“When I first went to Japan,” he recounted to friends recently, “I coached in the English language. I had an English translator but we lost the first five or six games and the chairman asked to meet me. I expected the sack, losing five or six games usually means bye-bye. The chairman told me he’d taken a very big decision, and I said ‘I understand’. He told me he had sacked the translator. I said ‘thank you very much, but it’s not his fault, I lost the games’. I saved the translator, we won a few games and I stayed at the club.”