Arsenal vs Crystal Palace: Arsene Wenger defends old enemy Sam Allardyce over 'unfair' England departure

The Arsenal manager said he would like to see more British managers in the Premier League, and held up Allardyce as an example to younger coaches

Arsene Wenger and Sam Allardyce exchange a quick before kick-off in Arsenal's game against West Ham, 2012 (Getty)

Arsene Wenger came to the defence of Sam Allardyce last night, saying that his old enemy was an “example to follow” for young English managers and that his departure from the England job in September was “tricky and unfair”.

Wenger and Allardyce have rarely seen eye to eye in the past, but there has been a rapprochement between the two recently, and when Allardyce takes his Crystal Palace team to Arsenal on Sunday afternoon he will meet a newly sympathetic Wenger.

This will just be Allardyce’s second game as Palace manager, his second game back in club football after resigning as England manager in September following a newspaper sting. Wenger said at his press conference on Friday morning that he felt Allardyce was unfairly treated in the days that led to his resignation after just one game in charge.

“It is a difficult situation,” said Wenger, clearly choosing his words carefully. “I feel the whole process was tricky, unfair. It was the same with Sven-Goran Eriksson at the time [he was England manager]. You do not know how serious it was. A guy can joke. It is very difficult to assess that situation. Overall, I find the whole process tricky and unfair.”

Those comments reflect the fact that Wenger and Allardyce are on far better terms now than they were 10 years ago, when Allardyce and his Bolton Wanderers side revelled in beating Arsenal and taunting them about it. Wenger saw Allardyce as part of a Manchester clique run by Sir Alex Ferguson, a description he stopped just short of repeating yesterday.

“You have to analyse the Premier League a bit regionally at the time,” Wenger said of the nadir of his relationship with Allardyce. "Before, you had Bolton and Manchester up there and it was a little…” Wenger did not finish his sentence, but he has spoken before of how he felt the close friendship between Allardyce, Ferguson and others stacked the deck against foreign coaches.

But Wenger confirmed that his relationship with Allardyce was improving “slowly, slowly”. “There is no obvious reason [why],” he explained. “I never had any problem with him.”

While the Premier League that Wenger arrived into more than 20 years ago was naturally dominated by British managers, they are now a rare breed. Tony Pulis of West Bromwich Albion is the only British manager in the top half.

Wenger repeated his old mantra that “the passport is not important”, but said that ideally there would be a fairer balance between British and foreign managers in the Premier League. Wenger held Allardyce up as a model for young British managers to follow, as proof that they can still succeed in the modern game.

“[Allardyce] is an example to follow as he can give hope to other English managers to get a chance in the Premier League,” Wenger said. “They can do it with their club, come up and be successful, of course. You want the right mixture."

Wenger is a famous free-market liberal but he does not want an entirely foreign coaching group in the Premier League. “You want the right mixture,” he said. “Somewhere when you in a country you want the culture of the country to be represented and defended. I think it is fair to have local people to be at the top. That is why I speak about mixture.”

The problem is that the evidence of Eddie Howe, whose Bournemouth side Arsenal play next week, and Sean Dyche, suggests that British managers are likelier to get into the Premier League by getting a team promoted there rather than getting appointed to a top-flight job.

Wenger said that the problem is that the financial gulf between the Championship and Premier League is so vast that chairmen are always inclined to take the risk-free option rather than take a chance on a younger manager.

“The Championship today is very difficult,” he said, “but once a chairman goes in the Premier League there is so much difference financially that the guy sits there and thinks 'do I put a young guy, a promising guy in charge? Or do I take a guy with experience and gives me certain guarantees to stay in the league?”

Wenger denied claims from out-of-favour right-back Mathieu Debuchy that the club had blocked him from leaving on loan in the summer, made in an interview in France last week. Wenger insisted that there had in fact been no offers for the unhappy France international. “Nobody came in for him in the summer, there are some things are not true in this article” Wenger said. “We never blocked him from going to Fiorentina or Espanyol. They had no interest in him at all, we checked that. You have to take that article with a little distance. It is a little bit of a frustrated article from a player who is injured.”

Debuchy also said that Wenger had blocked an attractive move to Manchester United, who wanted him on loan in January 2016, but Wenger denied that too. “They never made an offer from him,” Wenger said. “That is completely untrue. It is sometimes surprising to hear things like that.”