Arsenal exit left Arsene Wenger feeling lost... but now he wants to give back to football

Wenger: "I don't feel retired at all"
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Alex Young @alexwsyoung16 November 2018

Arsene Wenger admits he felt lost in the days after leaving Arsenal but is now ready to give back to the sport.

The Frenchman saw his 22-year spell at Arsenal end last season, a decision understood to have been not entirely up to the manager after a period of decline in recent seasons.

The final seasons of his long tenure were littered with protests against his employment as the club slid down the table, Wenger's last campaign concluded with a worst-ever league finish of sixth.

Wenger recently claimed he will be back in employment on January 1 after receiving "enquiries from all over the world", though says he doesn't miss every aspect of the sport.

"I remember [the first day as unemployed] very well," he told beIN Sports. "I was a bit lost because you have time in front of you, which was never the case before.

"You always have a problem to sort out and when you have sorted it, there is another one coming straight away. The next game is always a target in your life.

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"It's very difficult, but I took it as a challenge. I don't like to look back, I always look in front and try to think where my next level is."

He said: "I don't feel retired at all, I'm basically a competitor. There are many things I don't miss at all, like all the stuff around the game you have to deal with nowadays.

"But the day, the competition. The achievement that you can do it together, sharing emotions, sharing competitions, ups and downs - you miss that."

Wenger is not looking for any role in football, instead taking his time over the decision as he wants to help others with his experience after almost four decades at the top level.

He continued: "The problem is that people want to put you always in cases; 'retired' or 'finished'. As long as you have an appetite for life, you always want to be useful and do something which is useful.

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"The big advantage I ever - in the game 35 years without stopping - is sharing what I know with other people. If you don't do that, life is a bit useless. If you cannot share what you've accumulated or, at least, try to give some of it to other people, everything you've done looks useless.

"You should not leave this world without trying to give something to other people. When I look at my life I had one quality: to listen to other people who had been there before me."

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