(Photo by Michael Regan/Getty Images)

Arsene Wenger spent this evening, his 60th birthday, watching the Europa League. There are now five officials surveying these games, which he would like to study.

“It is the referees who age me, so I have to be aware of this,” Wenger joked this week.

The Frenchman hasn’t lost his sense of humour—despite the turmoil of last season, when he was openly criticised by Arsenal shareholders—nor the sense of devotion to his work, which includes sticking to a diet as stringent as his players.

I do hope he afforded himself a drop or two of pinot noir though, on his birthday after all. He deserves it after one hell of a year. Despite something of a nadir in May, Wenger neither wastes time naval gazing, nor massages his ego pondering past glories.

He’s had thirteen phenomenal years at Arsenal but the strength of the philosophy he has instilled in the club comes from the sheer force of his forward-thinking positivity.

This is how he has won over those who doubted him. But they will doubt him again if Arsenal finish the season empty-handed for a fifth successive season.

Emmanuel Petit, a prime example of Wenger’s ability to exceed value for money in the transfer market, said today that Wenger “must win” a trophy this season.

Unfortunately, he is right.

Not because the board will sack him if he fails to. It would probably take a sub-top four finish for at least two consecutive years for that to happen.

Non, says Monsieur Petit, it’s because of the threat that certain players could be tempted elsewhere. Cesc Fabregas, Andrey Arshavin, and Robin Van Persie—an attack-minded triumvirate not a million miles from Messi, Xavi and Iniesta at Barcelona—for example, need to believe that they are going to win Europe’s top prizes.

They probably will not be 100 percent convinced until it happens. But if Arsenal did not get their hands on that elusive trophy this season, it would surely happen in 2010-11. Nothing is certain, but while Arsenal steadily improve, other teams are ageing, confronting their swansong.  

If, unthinkably, the team did break up, Wenger—who turned down Real Madrid this summer because it represented the antithesis to his project at Arsenal—would perhaps question, for the first time, if he had the stomach to start rebuilding again. Again.

So this is a Rubicon moment for Arsenal on the pitch. Win this season—or stay and fight regardless—and Wenger’s best days, perhaps a European Cup triumph no less, lay ahead over the best part of another decade.

Lose and leave though, and the final chapter to Wenger’s legacy could be lost.

You're currently logged into Facebook

Do you want to share your Bleacher Report activity on Facebook?