Arsene Wenger lives and breaths football! Walcott thanks manager ahead of 1000th game

Wenger, looking to build on the success of his early Arsenal years, paid Southampton £5million downpayment with add-ons worth another £7.5m for the precious talent of Walcott in 2006.

He had played just 21 games for the Saints when Wenger came calling and he admits to having been more than a little in awe of the Frenchman, who had brought so much glory to the Gunners.

"I went to have a first meeting with him. He was pointing things out to me and I was only 16 at the time and I was a bit overwhelmed to be sat next to him. It was surreal at times," said Walcott, who says that Wenger's reputation was the deciding factor in him becoming a Gunner.

"Over the years I've got to know him more and he is easy to talk to. That is what you want in a manager: you want to be able to go and ask him anything, why you're not playing, what you can improve on.

"No matter what age you are, he talks to you like you are grown up. He won't treat anyone differently. He is honest about things and you want that in a manager. If you look at all the players he has developed, there's a good arrogance about them, shall we say. I wouldn't change anything for the world."

Wenger today becomes only the fourth British manager - after Sir Matt Busby, Sir Alex Ferguson and Dario Gradi - to reach 1,000 matches for one club, an accolade Walcott, 25, believes will not be achieved again.

"It's a massive achievement. He has been in the game for such a long time, he knows it inside out. I can't see anyone else getting near to it," said Walcott, currrently recovering from knee surgery.

"He loves football. He is the sort of man who will watch any football. He lives and breathes it."

Wenger was doing just that at his weekly media briefing at the team's training ground at London Colney as he was asked about the football philosophy that has sustained him for 18 years at one club.

"Week after week I still run after the idea of making players perfect and playing the perfect game and sometimes we touch that," he said. "Every morning when I wake up, I am happy to come to my job and that is the most important thing."

His job has not always been easy in recent years as Chelsea and Manchester City have thrown millions at buying trophies while success for Arsenal has been simply to qualify for the Champions League every season.

He insists you cannot gauge success simply by the amount of silver polish a club gets through each season, but it is an argument that is wearing thin with some supporters, despite Arsenal's challenge for the League and Cup double this term.

"What is both fantastic and difficult in our job is that it is very fragile," said Wenger. "Take Leeds. In 2002 on January 1, they were top of the Premier League and at the end of that season they were not in Europe, had to sell big players and they dropped.

"Bad decisions can make you go down quickly and drop a division - I don't think we are in that position but for years we had to be careful."

After 999 games at Arsenal, Wenger, 64, shows no sign of losing his all-consuming love for the game and yesterday he confirmed he will be signing a new deal with the club this summer.

"There should not be any uncertainty at all. My desire is to stay," he said. "It will be done soon but I want to focus on the end of the season.

"I am more passionate than ever to do well for Arsenal - although the next 1,000 games? That may be difficult," he said, smiling broadly to make sure everyone had got his joke and not taken him seriously.

"The competition is at a higher level now, it is more difficult to win but the impatience is there and my commitment is full. I don't want to look somewhere else. I want to stay here."

The players, who are signing for him with renewed deals every week, will be pleased to hear that. French midfielder Mathieu Flamini has signed for Wenger twice, first from Marseille in 2004 and then last year when he returned to the fold after a spell at AC Milan.

He said: "Arsenal is a big family. And for a big club stability is important and that is what he gives to the club. It is important for players to know you are going to get stability and you will have a manager who brings continuity.

"I hope he will not leave for many years and I hope he will be remembered for what he has done for this club.

"It was already a great club but he took it to a different dimension - playing in the Champions League every year and moving from one stadium to another."