Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger was a revolutionary but the problem in the end was he had no Plan B

In the age of Pep Guardiola, it may feel that Arsene Wenger is an anachronism. It is unlikely the Catalan will have as much impact on English football as the Arsenal manager.

The Premier League was already quick when the Frenchman arrived at Highbury in 1996. The rhythms of the game on these shores were defined by wind and mud. This meant the physicality of the sport was one of its great attractions.

Memories fade but it may surprise some that Wenger embraced the power of his Arsenal team. He upped the tempo. “He wasn’t a coach,” Tony Adams said. “He was a physiologist. He made us do things faster than ever before.”

Wenger made changes to the way players approached training and refuelling. Nutrition became a priority. Yet the real genius of those late 1990s Arsenal sides is the way they married skill and pace. They passed with a crispness and rapidity that shocked opponents. They were tough, too. The present-day Gunners back away at the first sign of a fight. The Wenger teams of those first, glorious years took the battle to opponents. Brutality met beauty and onlookers were mesmerised. Patrick Vieira, even more than Thierry Henry, is the perfect symbol of the early Wenger effect.

It was revolutionary but revolutions sometimes have unintended consequences. Sam Allardyce was one of those rival managers who saw that Arsenal’s brilliance could be neutralised by matching their physical attributes. And you could do it without the technique and the precision passing. Jose Mourinho took a similar approach with a little more sophistication.

Mourinho became Wenger’s arch enemy. The pinnacle of Wenger’s career was the Invincibles season, when Arsenal went unbeaten in the League. The Portuguese arrived at Stamford Bridge in 2004 while they were still celebrating their remarkable feat at Highbury. Mourinho likes to think of himself as one of the catalysts for Wenger’s decline but, in truth, most of the wounds of the second half of the Frenchman’s career in north London were self-inflicted. Adams’s words resonate. “Arsene wasn’t a coach…” Coaching and organization are not Wenger’s strong point. The likes of Mourinho and Rafa Benitez, the next wave of foreign managerial imports, were tacticians. Wenger has no plan B. There were others who had a sheaf of alternative blueprints.

The move away from Highbury came at a time when the revolution was taking a twist. If Wenger was Lenin, then the Stalinists were grabbing the power. Once he stood astride English football but for the past decade the only place Wenger ruled was the Emirates.

That presents a problem for Arsenal over the summer and for the next few years. Like his other prime antagonist, Sir Alex Ferguson, Wenger dominated the entire club. This season there have been attempts to build a new internal infrastructure at the Emirates but change may prove difficult.

Ferguson’s departure from Manchester United has resulted in half a decade of underachievement. Even now, under Mourinho, Old Trafford has yet to recapture the status it held under the Scot. Wenger’s absence will leave a similar vacuum. Preparation for the 68-year-old’s exit should have begun five years ago.

It is a day of mixed emotions. Those who remember the joyous, rugged effervescence of those early sides will always have a fondness for Wenger. Arsenal have drifted too long, though. They needed change. Perhaps, though, like their manager, they will be undone by a lack of strategy. Unless the club has a clear vision of what comes next it will be a dangerous time.

Wenger will be missed. Another of the greats is departing the game. When the dust clears it will be the glorious highs that are remembered not the dying days of his Arsenal career.