Ian Wright hails Arsene Wenger as 'ahead of his time' at Arsenal

Ian Wright has hailed Arsene Wenger as 'ahead of his time' as he recalled how Arsenal's legendary manager introduced the players to vitamin injections that would help improve their fitness and performance levels.

Wenger arrived at Arsenal in 1996 from Japanese outfit Nagoya Grampus Eight and was widely revered for changing the face of English football, including on the diet and nutrition front, as well as introducing inventive training methods.

The Frenchman would go on to claim three Premier League titles and a record-breaking seven FA Cups with Arsenal during his 22 years in north London.

And Wright has revealed how Wenger started changing the the way of life at Arsenal by introducing the players to vitamin injections that took them to new heights in the Premier League.

But Wright emphatically clarified his revelations by insisting the methods 'weren't suspect' before explaining the Frenchman's new ideas are 'basically stuff that everybody knows today.'

When Alan Shearer recalled on Match of the Day's 'Top 10 Premier League Managers' podcast how he always remembered Arsenal being so strong under Wenger when he came up against them for Newcastle, Wright replied: 'We used to have vitamin injections right into us, right into our arm.'

The former Gunners striker - who scored a remarkable 185 goals for the club - went on to reveal the lengths Wenger went to, to ensure the squad remained at the peak of their powers.

Wright added: 'We used to get sent to France. I used to have to do a session with a guy, I used to go there for two weeks because when you get to 30 or older, he was worried about how you would rehabilitate after you had played games and how you recover.

'I used to have to go and see a guy, unfortunately he has passed away, but it was like going to see Yoda. He would do the fitness, he would do the food for you. You've got to train on the beach. You go to sleep. I used to go with Patrick.

'That's what Arsene Wenger did, he'd take you to a place where you had to be literally the best you could be. And that's what he done with us. The B6 tablets, the B12, the training.

'I remember when we started training in pre-season, after we finished, and you know what pre-season was normally like, running you into the ground to the point where people were vomiting. And they'd say, brilliant, that's a good pre-season. We literally hardly did anything, to the point where Tony and Lee Dixon were saying, "boss, we don't feel fit enough."

'He (Wenger) literally called everyone in and he said, "you may not feel right right now, but as we move on, with everything we are doing, if you continue to take what we are telling you to take and train like we are telling you to train, we will just get stronger and he was absolutely right."

Wright went on to explain how it was the foreign stars that showed the older English professionals the ropes at Arsenal in terms of diet and nutrition, claiming they were at a 'different level' compared to the rest of the squad.

Wright added: 'What we found was that the foreign boys, Patrick (Vieira), Dennis (Bergkamp), all the boys, Emmanuel Petit, Remi (Garde), Nicolas (Anelka), as soon as he said take this, they took it.

'The English boys, some of us were like, "really, what's that about? Here we go, what's this tablet?" We wouldn't take it for a while, and slowly you would introduce it in, and you could see they were training at a different level after six or seven weeks than you were. So when you started taking it, everybody got to the same level – we just got so strong in the games.'

But after Wright's revelations on Wenger's methods, Shearer and host Gary Lineker started to call out their fellow pundit - with the former jokingly claiming that Newcastle should have been awarded the 1998 FA Cup as Arsenal's players 'took drugs'.

However, Wright staunchly defended his former manager - as he went on to explain how the Frenchman was just simply 'ahead of his time' and started a new era for English football.

Wright replied to Shearer: 'It's the only way you lot are going to get an FA Cup medal.

'Basically it was stuff that everybody knows today, like Vitamin C, B12, Omega-3. He was just so far ahead of his time. Before he came, we were eating anything we wanted. We were still eating pies and chips.'