Wenger: Champions League will not control my Arsenal fate

Having never finished outside the top four in 20 seasons at Arsenal, Arsene Wenger is on the cusp of his worst campaign yet – but the Frenchman insists Champions League qualification is not the be-all and end-all anymore.

The Gunners’ 3-1 loss at West Brom on Saturday was their fourth in five games in all competitions, and their slump at the beginning of 2017 has seen them drop to sixth in the Premier League table.

Everton are behind them by one goal only, and with a six point gap now between them and fourth-placed Liverpool, under-pressure Wenger admits Arsenal have it all to do.

But the veteran manager – still the longest serving boss in league football – believes qualification for Europe’s top competition need not be the number one priority for England’s biggest clubs any more.

“It will be a big fight [to get into the top four], but there’s no other way than by fighting and doing it until the last game of the season,” he said.

“Then, if it’s not good enough, we have to take the consequences. And then maybe one day if we don’t do it, people will enjoy it again to be in there.

“My decision [to stay or leave the club] will not necessarily be linked with that because I’ve done the top four 20 times. It’s more, it’s not that.

“I take a bigger perspective than that. It’s not the last result that will decide what I will do.

“It’s not (the end of the world), not any more. That was for a long time the case, but not today. Financially, I mean.

“Of course, on the sporting front it would be a blow, but financially the Champions League does not have the impact any more that it had five or six years ago because of the influx of the television money (to the Premier League).”