Wenger was half-kidding, obviously, yet in addition quick to answer allegations that the current generation of the Gunners don’t have as many aspirations with the club as the previous generations had.
Via The Mirror, Arsenal legend Lee Dixon told them, he was pinned up against the wall by teammates before his first game against Tottenham, telling him to win the game no matter what.
Till date Arsene Wenger has been in charge of 50 North London derbies winning 22, drawing 20 and losing just 8 games.
“Lee Dixon is a passionate guy, so in his response he is passionate as well. I think if that was the only way to feel football games, you would say, If you don’t win the game, you are killed after it. You are executed. That shows you that putting people up against the wall is not the only way. That’s why it’s so difficult to win a game. It’s a mixture between urgency and confidence, relaxed and tense, and that is different for every individual. Different for every team as well. You have to adapt your speech to the mental state of the team and the individual. They are the kind of remarks I’ve had for 20 years. I remember many people questioned me in 2002 and 2003 if (Robert) Pires will be tough enough to play in the derby. (History shows) This guy (Pires) has scored more goals than anybody in the derby. At the end of the day, it’s down to the quality of the game.”
Wenger’s grasp over North London has been huge over the 21-years he’s been at Arsenal, even if Arsenal hadn’t won Trophies they would almost always finish above Tottenham.
At the point when the Gunners pushed Tottenham off to finish the league in second place by one point during the 2015/16 season, the Emirates Crowd celebrated crazily and passionately, showing just how much this rivalry between the two clubs means to them.
Similarly, when Tottenham Hotspurs finally, at last, broke Wenger’s hold last season, their supporters appreciated it as a colossally critical minute and a flag of a power move in north London.
Last season, despite the fact that Spurs had finished the league above Arsenal, it was Wenger, not Mauricio Pochettino who had a trophy to flaunt — the FA Cup — regardless of the possibility that the Gunners dropped out of the best four without precedent for the Frenchman’s long rule.