Arsene Wenger: Former Arsenal Boss Admits Damning Regret About Club, 3 Years After Leaving

• Wenger enjoyed a successful stint as Arsenal manager, although his reign had an underwhelming end
• The 72-year old admits regret at the fact that he did not leave the North London club sooner
• A number of clubs have been interested in Wenger over the years including Juventus and Manchester United

Former Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger admits he should have left the North London club sooner when he was being courted by other clubs.

Wenger has the unique record of being the second longest-serving manager with one club in the Premier League, having served as Arsenal boss from 1996 to 2018.

At Arsenal, he enjoyed unprecedented success, including achieving an ‘invincible’ record during his road to Premier League triumph in the 2003/2004 season.

His stint towards the end of his career was however thoroughly underwhelming, with the Gunners often left to compete for a top-four place, rather than titles.

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While Arsenal are yet to hit the heights the club did under Wenger’s tenure, the Frenchman admits he should have left the job sooner when other prospects came calling.

“I identified myself completely with the club - that was the mistake I made,” he said while talking to The Telegraph ahead of the launch of the 'Arsene Wenger: Invincible' documentary.

“My fatal flaw is I love too much where I am ... where I was. I regret it. I should have gone somewhere else.”

Interests from elsewhere

Wenger, now 72, also disclosed some of the jobs that he was poised to take but turned them down because of his love for Arsenal.

“I could have gone to the French national team. The English national team twice or three times even. I could have gone twice to Real Madrid. I could have gone to Juventus, Paris Saint-Germain, even Man United.”

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Since leaving Arsenal in 2018, Wenger is yet to take up another job on a coaching capacity.

At the moment, he is serving as FIFA’s Chief of Global Development and is one of the forces behind the push to have a World Cup held every two years.

Arsenal resurgence

Meanwhile, Arsenal, currently under the guidance of Mikel Arteta, are experiencing some resurgence after making a horrible start to the new campaign.

Since losing three games in a row in their opening fixtures of the season, the Gunners are unbeaten under Arteta and have climbed to fifth after a run of good results.

In fact, stats show that if the season started on Gameweek 4, the Gunners would be top of the table.