Arsene Wenger would’ve had to encounter all sorts of incidents behind the scenes when he was the manager of Arsenal.
The legendary Frenchman spent 22 years at the helm, first at Highbury and then at the Emirates Stadium. He is Arsenal’s most successful manager of all time and an absolute legend of the club.
Wenger worked with some big players during his career at Arsenal. He managed Dennis Bergkamp, who was already a star when he first arrived, and then went on to sign several other huge names.
Everything almost always seemed cool from the outside, but there have definitely been some heated situations behind the scenes.
Arsenal Invincible Robert Pires has now shared one story.
Robert Pires explains why he was once furious with Arsene Wenger at Arsenal
Wenger signed Pires for Arsenal from French club Marseille in the summer of 2000.
The French winger spent six years as a Gunner, playing 284 games and winning five trophies, including two Premier League titles.
The one title Pires was desperate to win but failed was the Champions League. He, like everyone else at the club in 2006, came ever so close to winning it against Barcelona.
However, Pires, who started the game, didn’t last long – he was subbed off after just 20 minutes because Wenger had to replace Jens Lehmann, who had received a red card.
As you can imagine, Pires was furious with that decision, and he has now revealed what happened in the aftermath of that game.
The former France international claims he absolutely lost it and told Wenger that he wanted to ‘kill’ him. He was so upset that he decided to leave Arsenal immediately.
Years later, Wenger and Pires had a chat about it and the two men have been on good terms since.
Pires said on John Obi Mikel’s podcast: “I talked with Arsene Wenger about this. He told me, he managed 22 years at Arsenal and for him, it was a bad and very difficult decision to take.
“Can you imagine? Final of the Champions League and you need to take off one player. You need one because the ref sent Lehmann off. So, he changed the number seven, it was me.
“And of course, at that moment, I was very upset with him. I said: “I want to kill you!” Because Champions League, it’s very difficult to reach the final, but to win it, it’s more difficult. It’s one step but this step is very high.
“For me, yeah, it was very difficult and maybe that’s why I said ‘this is my last game with Arsenal and I’m leaving, I’m going to Spain to Villarreal’.”
2006 Champions League final referee admits he made a mistake during Arsenal vs Barcelona
Arsenal were absolutely unbelievable in the Champions League in the 2005/06 season.
The Gunners didn’t lose a single game in the competition up until the final and even knocked out teams like Real Madrid and Juventus along the way.
In the final against Barcelona, referee Terje Hauge decided to cancel a goal that went in for the Spanish side and gave Lehmann a red card.
That handicapped Arsenal, who had to play with 10 men for over two-thirds of the game.
Years later, Hauge admitted he made a mistake in the Champions League final that cost Arsenal – he accepted that he should’ve just given Lehmann a yellow card.
He said: “All in all, I’m quite happy with my performance. The match started well, then obviously there was the incident with the sending-off.
“At this point, I would have liked to have taken a few more seconds before I made my decision. The ideal thing would have been to wait a few seconds.
“If I’d done that, I could have given the goal and eventually given a yellow card. Of course, everyone wants a goal, so this was a key situation.”
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