Football is used to watching successful centre-back, centre-midfield or centre-forward pairings – but Arsenal’s manager-defender duo of Arsene Wenger and Per Mertesacker is something else.
Mertesacker will take over as Arsenal academy manager in a year’s time, while Wenger is widely believed to be moving towards the end of his career with the north London club.
And while Arsenal fans watch the two on the pitch week in, week out, there’s something about this pair that makes them completely watchable off it too.
There’s a lot to get through there. Wenger names Dennis Bergkamp as perhaps the most skilled player he has ever worked with, before Mertesacker says he’d give Arsene Wenger a miniature World Cup trophy if he had to buy him a present.
But perhaps the answer that baffled Wenger the most was when the German defender said his favourite pet animal was a guinea pig.
Here’s Wenger’s reaction – a guinea what?
Mertesacker got some intriguing answers from Wenger – it turns out the manager’s favourite word is “love”, and he would play Zorro in a movie if he could.
And the player Wenger managed with the hardest shot? Lukas Podolski of course.
Arsenal fans would love these two to help win them the 2017/18 Premier League title, but to see them continue their conversations on a regular TV show could be just as entertaining.
