Arsenal are looking to the future with a new manager, but Arsene Wenger is doing the same with a new club

Wenger is looking to win his first ever European trophy

Wenger is looking towards the future with a new club (Getty)

Arsenal play their biggest match of the decade tomorrow night, their first European semi-final since 2009, but it is impossible not to look far beyond it, into the uncertain future.

Whether he wins the Europa League or not, this time next month Arsene Wenger will no longer be Arsenal manager. And his press conference at London Colney on Thursday afternoon – he will only do three more of these – was dominated by questions about what will happen next. Will he take time off, or jump back into a job? What sort of job? And who will be sitting in that chair, taking those questions, in the first week of August?

This was only Wenger’s second press conference since the news of his departure broke on Friday morning, and while he is still emotional about the end of 22 years of work – what he has called “the sacrifice of my life” – he was markedly relaxed and open talking about it on Thursday. More publicly relaxed, in fact, than he often is the day before the big game.

There is a chance for something approaching closure for Wenger if they do win the Europa League. He has never won a European trophy with Arsenal, and is clearly still pained by his two final defeats: losing the 2000 Uefa Cup final to Galatasaray, and the 2006 Champions League final to Barcelona.

“We have to say they were under very special circumstances, one on penalties and one with 10 men,” he said. “When you look across Europe, with the financial power everybody has, it is not easy now to get in there.”

12 years on from that defeat in Paris, arguably the hinge-point in Wenger’s long Arsenal tenure, they could be back in another final in France on 16 May. It would be the perfect goodbye to the Arsenal job for Wenger – doing something for the first time as well as for the last time – and in his home country. But then he will be out of work. And when he was discussing whether these might be his final European games, he gave a huge clue about his future.

“I hope this is not my last European cup game,” Wenger said. “I think on the list of the guys who have played in Europe I am quite high up, if not the highest. So my target is to play in Europe again.” It was the clearest indication yet that Wenger wants to return to management, and not in a director’s role, or a political role, or a national team role, but back here, at the top end of the European club game, where he has been for so long.

Asked whether he would take a sabbatical or jump straight back in, Wenger said he would need some time just to measure any withdrawal symptoms he might have when it all stops. He knows he is addicted, but has no idea how badly.

“I had no break for 35 years,” he said. “In our job, you can look around, that doesn’t exist. I don’t know now how addicted I am. I am a bit like a guy who plays Russian Roulette every week and suddenly has no gun any more. So, I will see how much I miss that gun.”

Clearly Wenger will desperately miss being Arsenal manager, but he said that he has the maturity to wish them all the best as they move on from him. As much as his departure will still hurt. “I wish that all goes well,” he said. “You do not give 22 years of your life for something and you go away and want things to collapse. Not at my age. Maybe when you have a big ego at 40 you think the world without you cannot live. At my age you understand that when you go, the world continues and you wish that it continues better. At least I think that the guy can work in a positive environment.”

That replacement will be working in an environment entirely shaped by Wenger. Managing a squad of players Wenger signed, at a training ground Wenger built, sitting in a chair that Wenger not only occupied but even specifically chose. He knows what an attractive job it is. “You will not be short of candidates,” he said. “That shows you as well that the place is a good place: green outside, nice trees, good grass. No pollution. Until the press conference starts.”

But while Wenger tried to stay wholly neutral about who replaces him, he did let slip that he would like it to be a former player of his, with Patrick Vieira and Mikel Arteta both in the frame. “They need to make the right decision, even if you have to be bold,” he said. “That is what I wish, personally. Is it former people that worked here? That is even better. But there are many players who had qualities. Some of them are in the job. I don't influence that choice but I will stand behind the decision.” And his shadow will stand over the replacement too, whoever that may be.