Wenger 1,000

Arsène Wenger will take charge of his 1,000th game as Arsenal manager this weekend, so we're taking a look at the stats behind an incredible achievement.

Having been appointed manager on October 1, 1996, the boss's first official game in charge of Arsenal was on October 12 - a 2-0 win over Blackburn Rovers at Ewood Park. Since then Arsenal have played 999 matches, winning 579 (58 per cent), drawing 223 and losing the other 197.

The Gunners have scored 1,845 goals at an average of 1.8 per game, and conceded 961. Wenger's overall goal difference is +884.

Those 999 games include 11 trophy-clinching matches (four FA Cups, three league titles and four Charity/Community Shields). He won silverware in games 87, 90, 91, 145, 320, 321, 323, 381, 436, 441, and 497 of his reign.

Two thirds (66.7 per cent) of the total games have been in the Premier League, 165 in the Champions League, 89 in the FA Cup, 61 in the League Cup, 11 in the Uefa Cup and there were six Charity/Community Shield fixtures.

Arsenal have played 491 home games under Wenger (264 at Highbury, 221 at Emirates Stadium and six at Wembley in the Champions League), 484 away from home and 24 on neutral venues. The Gunners' win percentage for those home games is 69 per cent, compared to 47 per cent for away fixtures.

Now into his 18th term in charge, Arsène Wenger is currently presiding over the best season in the Club's history in terms of win percentage.

The Gunners have won 30 of the 45 games so far in 2013/14 - for a 66.7 per cent win rate - better than each of the previous 109 seasons since Arsenal became a league side in 1893.

In fact, four of Arsenal's five best ever seasonal win percentages have been recorded during the Wenger era.

Looking at the manager's tenure in terms of centuries of games, rather than seasons, the period of 901 to 999 is also one of the best on record, with 60 wins from the last 99 games - six more victories than there were in the previous 100 matches. There have also been 18 draws and 21 defeats during this 10th century of games.

The most successful hundred was the fifth (between November 2003 and August 2005). The boss won 64 of those games, drawing 23 and losing just 13.

Overall there has been very little difference in performance between each hundred games. Arsenal have always won at least 53 games in each ton, and never lost more than 26.

The 1,000th game will take place at Stamford Bridge, against Chelsea, the same venue as Wenger's 500th game in charge, back in August 2005. Though Arsenal will be hoping for a different outcome to the 1-0 defeat that day.

As well as winning his first game in charge, Wenger went on to win his landmark 100th, 200th, 400th and 800th games as boss.

 

 

Arsène Wenger is the Club's 18th permanent full-time boss, and has taken charge of nearly twice as many matches as the next manager on the list.

He has recorded at least twice as many victories as the next most successful manager (and has won more games than his four immediate predecessors combined).

He's the only Arsenal manager to win the FA Cup more than once and the league more than twice. He’s the only post-war Gunners manager to win more than half of his games. In fact, even if he lost each of his next 100 games in charge, he would still have the highest win ratio of any Arsenal manager in history.

His team have scored more goals (more than twice as many as the next manager), and he has overseen the most league matches, FA Cup matches, League Cup matches, European fixtures and Community Shield games of any Arsenal boss in history.

He has led the team for 28.3 per cent of all Arsenal games since the war, and is responsible for more than a third of all wins (33.7 per cent) in that time.

Wenger has taken charge of 79.5 per cent of all of Arsenal's Premier League games (667), and has won 83.7 per cent of Arsenal's Premier League total points tally (1,326).

Those 1,326 Premier League points have come at an average of 1.99 per game. That's more points than every Premier League team except Man United, Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool have managed since the league began in 1992.

In addition he has overseen 69.6 per cent of all of Arsenal's games in European competition (176).

Arsenal's average league finishing position under Wenger is 2.7 - it was 7.5 before he arrived.

Arsenal have finished in the top four in each of his 17 seasons. The Club's previous longest sequence of top four placings was five, between 1931 and 1935. Overall 42.5 per cent of all the Club's top-four finishes have come in the Wenger era.

This season is the 24th in the Gunners' history that the team have won at least 30 games in a campaign - all but eight of those seasons have been under Wenger.

 

 

The first starting line-up Wenger named, for the game at Ewood Park in 1996, was: David Seaman, Lee Dixon, Nigel Winterburn, Martin Keown, Steve Bould, Tony Adams, David Platt, Ian Wright, Paul Merson, Patrick Vieira, John Hartson. Ray Parlour came on as sub. 

Five of those players (Vieira, Parlour, Keown, Seaman and Dixon) went on to be among the 20 most used players by the boss. Vieira still holds the record for most appearances under Wenger (402), while from the current squad Theo Walcott has played the most (281).

Compiling an all-time 'best XI' in terms of most appearances under Wenger would give the following team: David Seaman, Bacary Sagna, Gael Clichy, Kolo Toure, Sol Campbell, Patrick Vieira, Freddie Ljungberg, Ray Parlour, Cesc Fabregas, Thierry Henry and Dennis Bergkamp.

In total 187 players have played for Wenger at Arsenal, which represents 22.8 per cent of the total players ever to appear in the red and white.

Wenger has given an Arsenal first-team debut to 166 players, of which 23 were 17 or younger at the time. Of the 166 debutants under Wenger, 48 (29 per cent) were English, with French the next most popular nationality (15 per cent).

Ian Wright was Wenger's first goalscorer (in fact he scored 12 times in the manager's first 11 games) but Thierry Henry of course leads the way in all-time goals for the boss. He scored 228 goals, which is also the Club's all-time scoring record.

Between them, Henry, Robin van Persie and Dennis Bergkamp scored 25 per cent of all goals in the Wenger era.

There have been 97 different scorers (not including own goals) in all competitions since Wenger took over, scoring an average of 18.5 goals each.

 

 

 

Wenger has managed Arsenal against 110 different teams during his 999 games, beating 106 of those opponents at least once. The only four teams he hasn't defeated are CSKA Moscow, Fiorentina, Galatasaray and PAOK Salonika.

 

The team he has beaten most often is Everton (26 wins) followed by Newcastle (23), Blackburn Rovers, West Ham and Tottenham (21 each).

His teams have scored most often against Tottenham - Tomas Rosicky's strike on Sunday was the 84th against them from 43 matches under the boss.

Manchester United are the most common opponents - the teams have met 51 times and all but two of those encounters pitted Arsène Wenger against Sir Alex Ferguson.

The most common scoreline from the 999 games is 1-1, which has been recorded 112 times, and the most frequent winning result is 1-0 (106 times).
 
Wenger has lost only 70 games by more than one goal, and only 22 (two per cent) by more than two goals. By contrast he has won 341 by at least two goals and 167 (17 per cent) by three or more.

Arsenal have scored in 829 of the 999 games and kept 382 clean sheets. There have been 43 different scorelines in all - the biggest win is 7-0, achieved three times (v Everton in May 2005, Middlesbrough in January 2006 and Slavia Prague in October 2007).

The longest run of wins is 13 in 2002, while the longest unbeaten stretch was 28 matches, between April and November 2007 (game numbers 609 to 636 of the Wenger reign). That is also an all-time club record. The most consecutive defeats Wenger has suffered is four, during October 2002.

Looking purely at league games, the all-time longest unbeaten run is of course 49 games, set between May 2003 and October 2004. That sequence is also the all-time record in English league history, and included the only unbeaten entire league campaign in the modern era.

 

 

 

 

Stats correct as at March 19, 2014. With thanks to Opta