• Premier League

Replacing Wenger 'biggest challenge', says Gazidis

Arsenal chief executive Ivan Gazidis has admitted replacing English football's longest-serving manager, Arsene Wenger, will be a huge challenge for the club.

Gazidis hailed Wenger, who has been in charge at Arsenal for 18 years, as a "managerial giant" who had "put the club in a great, great position."

He claimed the man whose Arsenal career has brought three Premier League titles, five FA Cups and a Champions League final had also driven them through the move from their former Highbury home to the Emirates Stadium.

"The biggest challenge we're going to face as a club is that, when the transition from Arsene to the next manager happens - and I don't know what that's going to be - we come through that strongly," Gazidis said.

"So much of the attention on a football club is around an individual, and that's very understandable at Arsenal because we have a giant managing us.

"Arsene has been a fantastic driver and has put the club in a great, great position."

Gazidis described Arsenal as being "off the shoulder" of the world's top teams, but stressed that they were aiming to join that bracket and had the right ingredients in place to do so.

"We want this football club to be at the top of the world's game," he said. "If the manager believes in someone like Mesut Ozil, he can buy him. It's the same with Alexis Sanchez.

"Underneath that tip of the iceberg, those star signings, there's an awful lot else going on. Our youth development, for example, is going to be the foundation of this football club going forward.

"We are off the shoulder of the world's top teams, but that's where we're aiming to get to. We want Arsenal to be in that elite group of football clubs around the world."

Ivan Gazidis, right, has praised Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger, left © Getty Images

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