PHOTOS: Arsenal have unveiled an Arsene Wenger statue outside The Emirates

Arsenal have unveiled an Arsene Wenger statue outside The Emirates.

A statue depicting legendary former Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger was unveiled at the club’s Emirates Stadium on Friday.

The bronze statue – which shows Wenger lifting the Premier League trophy – was created by sculptor Jim Guy. It is 3.5 meters tall and weighs approximately 500 kilograms.

Wenger holds the record for being the longest-serving manager in Premier League history.

He was in charge of Arsenal for 7,894 days from October 1996 to May 2018. During Arsène’s 22 years at the club, he was manager of our men’s first team for an incredible 1,235 matches and led us through the most successful period in our history, transforming our identity with his vision for how the game was played, and has been identified to have created the ‘modern Arsenal’.

But Arsène’s impact with us goes far beyond the pitch. He was instrumental in the design and building of our London Colney training centre, which opened its doors in October 1999, and also played a key role in many of the design elements in our move from Highbury to Emirates Stadium in 2006.

The statue of Arsène is already in place at Emirates Stadium, where it was carefully fixed into position outside the North Bank stand on Friday morning. It is now easily accessible for all to view.

We won three league championships in all under Arsène, following the 1998 success with further triumphs in 2001/02 and 2003/04 – a season in which Arsène led us to perhaps his greatest achievement in going the whole campaign unbeaten. In total, we went 49 league matches without defeat – a top-flight record. He is also the FA Cup’s most successful manager, having won the competition seven times (1998, 2002, 2003, 2005, 2014, 2015 and 2017).