Arsene Wenger Quotes

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

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.

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.

It is one of my biggest regrets that Niall Quinn was not here during my time ... I felt he was an intelligent player. It would have been a good combination with Thierry Henry. What I like with Quinn is if you look at the player who played next to him, he always scored 40 goals because he had a hand for his head and he just put the ball where you were. He was a team player. A top-class player makes other players look good and he had that player.

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

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.

I'm not scared to spend money. If you go out with me one night, you will understand that.

Gerard Houllier's thoughts on the matter international football echo mine. He thinks that what the national coaches are doing is like taking the car from his garage without even asking permission. They will then use the car for ten days and abandon it in a field without any petrol left in the tank. We then have to recover it, but it is broken down. Then a month later they will come to take your car again, and for good measure you're expected to be nice about it.

Everyone thinks they have the prettiest wife at home.

To achieve great things you have first to believe it.

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.

Sometimes you have to swallow the unswallowable

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

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

In England you have a good phrase. It is 'to bring the game into disrepute.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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 background looks like a lot of red cards.

You weren't world-class when Arsenal signed you.

He made the impossible possible.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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!

Have Tottenham closed the gap on Arsenal?
Last time I checked they were still 4 miles and 11 titles away

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

When I first came to Arsenal, I realised the back four were all university graduates in the art of defending. As for Tony Adams, I consider him to be a doctor of defence. He is simply outstanding.

I believe the target of anything in life should be to do it so well that it becomes an art.

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

When you give success to stupid people, it makes them more stupid sometimes and not more intelligent.

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.

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.'

No matter how much money you earn, you can only eat three meals a day and sleep in one bed.

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

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.

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

The biggest things in life have been achieved by people who, at the start, we would have judged crazy. And yet if they had not had these crazy ideas the world would have been more stupid.

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

It's like a child who is used to having ice cream whenever he wants. When it doesn't come when he asks he tends to get confused and nervous.

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.

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.

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

Their diet is basically boiled vegetables, fish and rice. No fat, no sugar. You notice when you live there that there are no fat people.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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?

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.

A football team is a like a beautiful woman, when you do not tell her, she forgets she is beautiful

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

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.

Nobody has enough talent to live on talent alone. Even when you have talent, a life without work goes nowhere.

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.

I think training of better Youth Coaches is essential.

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

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

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

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

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

You cannot play for Arsenal and give up, no matter what the score is.

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

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.

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

Messi is a Playstation.

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

In England, football is important for everybody.