After 20 years of Arsene Wenger, he’s almost like a comfort in the constant change of Premier League football. He’s a herald of a past era. Sir Alex Ferguson is sipping on the expensive stuff in the Old Trafford director’s box these days but Arsene is still putting that winter long-coat to good use, kicking water bottles and conspicuously shaking hands with his managerial associates.

He entered the league as a risky, if ambitious, new face – a man whose mild playing career hadn’t earned him all too much recognition – and while he showed promise in his time with Monaco, by the time Arsenal got to him he was working away at Nagoya Grampus Eight in Japan. At the time Arsenal were less than a decade removed from winning their first league title in a generation and in the likes of Ian Wright, David Seaman, Martin Keown, Tony Adams and Ray Parlour they had a talented English core famed for a pretty tough and gritty style of play. ‘Arsene Who?’ they said.

It took a few weeks for Wenger to be confirmed as the new boss, replacing Bruce Rioch. Contract stuff got in the way. Rumours were that Johan Cruyff was gonna get the gig but it became clear which direction they were heading in when the club signed an unknown French midfielder named Patrick Vieira. The rest, as the saying goes, is history.

In a lot of ways, Wenger was the first modern manager. He took significant control over transfers and training. His views on diet were completely ahead of their time. These days Pep Guardiola makes headlines for banning pizza amongst his players and encouraging them to snack away at trail mix through the day – but 20 years ago Arsene Wenger was having his lads eating pasta before games and cutting their red meat intake. He tackled the drinking culture head on and won.

Not only that but his technical, intuitive, flowing style of football that he always encouraged was no doubt an influence on so many teams that followed – not in the least Barcelona, who were once Arsenal imitators themselves and within a few years that script had flipped. He’s worn many formational hats over the years, from his early 4-4-2 to his current 4-2-3-1 preference but that particular Arsenal style has always been there ever since Wenger first managed to eke it out of the talented lumpers he inherited. That particular transition can be attributed directly to the signing of a lad named Bergkamp, actually a year before Wenger took over – though it was Wenger who made the most of him. Believe it or not, Bergkamp struggled early on and was considered a flop in his initial months.

In Wenger’s first nine seasons, he won three Premier Leagues and the only time he finished outside the top two was in his first one, where he was third and even then it was only by goal difference. There were four FA Cup triumphs and a further final as well as a UEFA Cup final defeat. Arsenal famously went undefeated through the entire 2003-04 season.

That period was followed, in his tenth year, by a Champions League final defeat to Barcelona and a fourth place finish in England. If you’re playing at home, this season marks the beginning of Wenger II. It was in 2006 that the club made the move to the new Emirates Stadium and with that came a period of financial inflexibility. Top players were sold and in their place youngsters were recruited to hopefully develop into top players who could be sold.

That period gave way to Wenger III fairly recently when Mesut Ozil and Alexis Sanchez were bought in back to back years, sparking an end to the frugality and the nine-year trophy drought with back to back FA Cup victories. In the 2015-16 season the Gunners finished second for their best league placing since Wenger I. They never finished below fourth in all this time but safe to say there’s something of a fractious relationship between him and the fans these days because of them.

And that’s sad. Wenger’s contract runs up after this season and there’s no telling if he’ll be back for another spell. At 66 he could certainly have a few more years in him yet, although who’s to say those years aren’t spent with the England national team? Hey, just speculating. The Arsenal team of right now is arguably as strong as it’s been in a decade but that won’t be recognised unless they win something, which is no simple task given how strong the PL is these days.

Wenger’s Arsenal have always carried a reputation for being a little fragile. They’ve not often had it in them to grind a result out on a bad day and the defence has often been prone to silly mistakes. Patrick Vieira left and they never replaced his leadership. They’d need a whole new spine to the team and Wenger would go about it year by year, a goalkeeper now and a centre back in 12 months kinda thing. They’ve been eliminated in the Champions League round of 16 now six seasons in a row – which is remarkably and infuriatingly consistent.

People can chill with the fragility because it comes as a collateral of the promise to produce attractive football. See, Wenger is an optimist at heart, he’s the kind of manager that believes in his own team’s striving for perfection. You won’t catch Wenger changing his approach to match up with the opponent, no way. He’s a purist and a moralist. Wins and losses come and go and not always in the way that they should – so when you’re a man whose entire footballing perception is based on absolutes then chasing wins at the expense of perfection is an affront. An offence, even. Luckily good football produces goals and goals produce wins so success, as fleeting and untrustworthy as it may be, still follows.

Which is why the fragility is not a big deal. The big deal is in the transfer market where Wenger appears reluctant to address seemingly obvious holes in his squad. It’s not his fault they got stingy when they switched stadiums. Also, it was completely worth it because now Arsenal are one of the more sustainable clubs out there and they’re doing it without heavy bankrolling. Perception is reality though and when people make up their minds about what they see then it takes a lot of convincing to change those minds.

And, on a purely base level, it sucks to see great players leave your club. It sucks when you sell captain after captain. It sucks when those players then kit up against you in the jerseys of your greatest rivals.

Just wait though. The moment that Wenger retires/leaves, the focus will shift back to Wenger I and the good old days when Patrick Vieira was giving Roy Keane what for, when David Seaman and then Jens Lehman were making magnificent save after magnificent save, when Sol Campbell was bossing the defence and Robert Pires was doing silky things in the opposition penalty area. Freddie Ljungberg, Ashley Cole, Cesc Fabregas, Marc Overmars, Gilberto Silva, Robin Van Persie.

Dennis Bergkamp doing insane things like this:

And Thierry Henry scoring goals so beautiful that you almost want to cry. (If one of these came against your own team then you probably did):

That’s the legacy of Arsene Wenger right there. Not the trophies, not the transfers, but the splendour of it all.