Managerial career
Wenger thanking the crowd after the final home game of 2006/07 season.
May 1,
2007Wenger's first senior management job was at
Nancy, which he joined in 1984, but he enjoyed little success there: during his third and final season in charge, Nancy finished 19th and were relegated to the
Ligue 2. His managerial career took off when he became the manager of
AS Monaco in 1987. He won the league in 1988 (his first season in charge) and the
French Cup in 1991, and signed high-calibre players such as
Glenn Hoddle,
George Weah and
Jürgen Klinsmann. He also signed 23-year old
Youri Djorkaeff from
RC Strasbourg; the future World Cup winner finish

ed joint top goalscorer in Ligue 1 (with 20 goals) during Wenger's final season in France. Wenger turned down approaches by
Bayern Munich and the
France national team out of loyalty for Monaco, only to be fired after a poor start to the 1994-95 season.
He moved on to a successful 18-month stint with the
Japanese J. League team
Nagoya Grampus Eight, with whom he won the
Emperor's Cup, the national cup competition. He also took the club from the bottom three to runners-up position in the league. At Grampus, he hired former
Valenciennes manager
Boro Primorac, whom he had met during the 1993 match-fixing scandal involving
Olympique de Marseille, as his assistant; he would remain Wenger's "right-hand man" for years to come.
Wenger had in the meantime become a friend of the then Arsenal vice-chairman
David Dein, after the two had met when Wenger attended a match between Arsenal and
Queens Park Rangers in 1988. After
Bruce Rioch was sacked in August 1996,
Gérard Houllier, the then technical director of the
French Football Federation, recommended Wenger to David Dein in the summer of 1996. Arsenal confirmed his appointment on
September 28,
1996, and he officially took up the reins on
October 1. Wenger was Arsenal's first manager from outside the
UK. Though he had previously been touted as a potential technical director of the
Football Association, at the time Wenger was a relative unknown in England.
Even before he formally took control of the team, Wenger had started to shape the Arsenal squad, having requested that the club sign French midfielders
Patrick Vieira and
Rémi Garde a month before he took charge. His first match in charge was a 2-0 victory over
Blackburn Rovers on
October 12,
1996. Arsenal finished third in Wenger's first season, missing out on second place (occupied by
Newcastle United), and hence Champions League qualification, on goal difference.
In his second season in charge (
1997-98), Arsenal won both the Premiership and
FA Cup, the second
Double in the club's history; it came after Arsenal made up a twelve point deficit on
Manchester United to win the League title with two games to spare. Key to the success was the inherited defence of
Tony Adams,
Steve Bould,
Nigel Winterburn,
Lee Dixon and
Martin Keown, along with striker
Dennis Bergkamp as well as a blend of Wenger's new signings:
Emmanuel Petit as a partner for
Patrick Vieira, winger
Marc Overmars, and teenage striker
Nicolas Anelka.
The following few seasons were comparatively barren with a series of near misses. In
1998-99, they lost the Premiership title to Manchester United by a single point on the final day of the season, and United also eliminated Arsenal in extra time in an FA Cup semi-final. This was followed the next season by losing the
UEFA Cup Final to
Galatasaray on
penalties and the
2001 FA Cup Final to
Liverpool 2-1. Wenger resolved to bring new players to the squad, with the controversial signing of Tottenham's
Sol Campbell as well as first-team pl

ayers such as
Fredrik Ljungberg,
Thierry Henry and
Robert Pirès.
The new signings would help Wenger's Arsenal achieve the double once more in
2001-02. The crowning moment was the second to last game of the season, against Manchester United; Arsenal won 1-0 in a game, which Arsenal are seen to have generally outplayed Manchester United. Arsenal went the whole season unbeaten away from home and scored in every single Premier League game that season, and completed the Double by beating Chelsea 2-0 with goals from
Ray Parlour and Fredrik Ljungberg.
After a strong start to the
2002-03 season, Arsenal had looked as though they were going to retain the Premier League crown for the first time in their history. At one point Arsenal had led eventual winners Manchester United by eight points, but their form collapsed late on in the season; Manchester United overhauled the Gunners in the latter stage of the season to win the title, as Arsenal threw away a two-goal lead against
Bolton Wanderers to draw 2-2 and then lost the title at home to
Leeds United.
Arsenal were compensated with an FA Cup win in 2003, and the following season made history by winning the
2003-04 Premiership title in 2004 without a single loss, the first top-flight team to manage this feat since
Preston North End in
1888-89. Throughout the undefeated campaign of 2003-04 Wenger was so busy that he never even had time to eat lunch[
citation needed]. A year earlier, Wenger had been derided for saying it was possible Arsenal could go unbeaten in an entire season.
With another FA Cup win in 2005, in all, Arsenal have won three Premier League titles and four FA Cups under Wenger, making him Arsenal's most successful manager in terms of trophies. However, the
UEFA Champions League title still eludes him; the closest Arsenal have come was when they reached the
final in
2005-06, the first time in club history, which they lost 2-1 to
Barcelona.
In October 2004, he signed a contract extension that would keep him at Arsenal through the
2007-08 season. The then Arsenal vice-chairman
David Dein stated Wenger has a "job for life" at Arsenal, and had planned to offer Wenger a role on the Arsenal board once he has retired as a manager.Wenger's future as manager was thrust into question when David Dein left the Arsenal board on
April 18,
2007. However on the
6 September 2007, Wenger agreed to sign a new three-year contract at Arsenal.