Arsenal's Arsène Wenger said he would not be interested
in becoming the next Real Madrid manager. Photograph: Ian
Kington/AFP/Getty Images
Arsène Wenger has told Real Madrid to forget about making an
approach for him in the summer if, as expected, they part company
with their coach, Manuel Pellegrini. Florentino Pérez, the Real
president, tried to entice Wenger from Arsenal last summer, as he embarked
upon his second galácticos project at the Bernabéu, only to be
rebuffed, and Wenger said that any renewed attempt would meet with
the same result.
Real remain in a state of shock after their Champions League
exit at the hands of Lyon on Wednesday night, the sixth season in
succession that they have left Europe's elite competition at the
first knockout stage, and Pellegrini is set to pay for the failure
with his job. In that event it is likely that Wenger would again
feature prominently on Pérez's list of targets.
Wenger joked yesterday that Real ought to "leave me alone" when
the subject of him potentially being chased by the club was
broached. "I am always going to the end of my contract and I am
going to 2011," he said. "There is no way."
Wenger was disillusioned towards the end of last season when
Arsenal had endured a tough time on the pitch and he was the focus
for a disgruntled minority of supporters. There was a feeling that
he used Pérez's interest in him as a device to remind those fans
what they would miss if he were to leave. The overwhelming majority
of Arsenal supporters remained supportive and it was also difficult
to see Wenger at Real, a club whose values appear so different from
his own. Wenger offered a straight bat yesterday when, before the
Premier League visit to Hull City
tomorrow, he was asked to give the details of Pérez's approach to
him last summer.
"For me it is the worst moment to come back on that," he said,
with a smile. "At the moment I focus on Hull City. Maybe it's less
glamorous than Real Madrid but they are much more important in my
life at the moment."
Pérez spent £240m on new signings last summer, including
Cristiano Ronaldo and Kaká, and his dream was to contest the
Champions League final in May, which will be staged at the
Bernabéu. But Wenger warmed to a familiar theme when he pointed out
that money does not guarantee success and he also suggested that
Real's toils ought to put into perspective the level of Arsenal's
consistent achievements in Europe in the recent past.
"£240m doesn't buy you the Champions League necessarily," he
said. "If you can spend it every year, you will get there but it is
the first year of Pérez back and you have to give him time. He only
has to invest again next year, so I think they will be a force
again. But at the moment it's difficult to take for them.
"In the last five years we have been in the [Champions League]
final, the semi-final, two times the quarter-final. It is the
consistency that is the most difficult to achieve at the top level
because you have so many teams that want to be in there. When you
just turn up regularly, in England, we don't rate that any more
because we are used to it. But it's not easy."
There was conjecture at the beginning of the season that the
balance of power had transferred from the Premier League to La Liga, with Ronaldo and Xabi Alonso
having swapped Manchester United and Liverpool respectively for
Real, Barcelona being the Champions League holders and Spain the
European champions. The most recent set of Champions League results
would appear to challenge that theory.
"It shows the strength of the league here," said Wenger, who
revealed that he would be without his captain, Cesc Fábregas, at
Hull because of hamstring damage. "In England you could have three
teamsthrough to the Champions League quarter-final and you have
Fulham and Liverpool who are fighting in the Europa League. At the
moment England is very strong.
"In the Premier League this season the top teams have lost more
games domestically but that had no consequences on Europe. We have
not weakened internationally. The Premier League has maybe become
stronger."