Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger thinks that Sir Alex Ferguson might just be tempted to get involved once again in football despite retiring from the game last season.
Wenger and Ferguson were fierce rivals during the Frenchman’s early years at Highbury, but the two had become friendlier as the years went by prompting Wenger to joke that he “feared the worst” in Fergusons autobiography.
The Arsenal manager even has a chapter dedicated to his titled “Competing with Wenger” with the majority of it based on what was then called “pizzagate” after Manchester United ended Arsenals 49 match run of not losing a game.
Following Fergusons retirement Wenger is now the longest running manager at any club in the Premiership, and has hinted at missing the rivalry he enjoyed with the Scot, and when asked if he thought Ferguson might be tempted back into football said: “In six months we will know more about that. You cannot rule it completely out.
“It is difficult to take a drug for 30 years and suddenly get rid of it.”
The Frenchman accepts that football has changed and that people like him and Ferguson may never come again highlighting the need for success and the recent resignation of Ian Holloway at Crystal Palace.
“You would be tempted to say yes, because the environment has changed,” the 64-year-old added. “Pressure through society is much bigger now because patience levels have dropped.
“Expectation levels have increased and 15 years ago you wouldn’t think a manager like Ian Holloway would be under stress in October when he has managed to get a team like Crystal Palace up.
“We live in a speedy society and it is as well that some values have gone, others come in, but certainly the expectation levels are much higher. The impatience levels are much higher as well.”
Despite not signing a new contract yet with Arsenal Wenger is not ready to give it all up yet and write his memoir saying: “It looks like Ferguson had prepared his book while he was managing – I suspect he had written some of it at home at night, remembering things and thinking: ‘that goes into my book!’
“We have gone through some years that were a bit more difficult, but honestly, in our job, it is quite simple just to think about tomorrow or the next game, and that is it. After that, people judge.
“We are in a job that is a good teacher of humility, because we have to accept that everybody can judge our job at any moment without completely knowing all the ingredients of our job.
“But it is part of it, with the positive and the negative. Sometimes they give us credit we don’t deserve as well, but we have to take both sides.”
