How Arsene Wenger became just another poster boy for the greed that will kill football, writes IAN LADYMAN

Sometimes Google really can be your friend and on this occasion it spits out a handy quote from Arsene Wenger from when he was manager of Arsenal in 2010.

‘The World Cup will dominate the summer but I believe the big problem is that the gap between the end of the tournament and the start of the new season is too short,’ Wenger said.

‘It is nearly impossible for any player in the world to play the World Cup final on July 11 and still be hungry to play again on August 14. There’s so much pressure and you need so much recovery time that it’s unfair on the players.’

Fifteen years on and there is some neat symmetry at play.

If a July 11 to August 14 pre-season turnaround was a danger to players after South Africa 2010 then what about July 13 to August 16? It’s the same, yeah?

Like, exactly the same. 34 days. Yet this is the gap between the end of this summer’s FIFA Club World Cup and the start of the English Premier League season.

One of the smartest football men we were ever lucky enough to know has been dazzled by Fifa’s bright lights and shiny coins

Arsene Wenger could smell football’s ugliness – and there has always been plenty of it – at 100 paces and would close his door on it

Where once he was an advocate for beauty and principles and charm and guile, Wenger is now hooked so hard to Gianni Infantino’s horrible Fifa gravy train

So if it wasn’t safe in 2010, what makes it safe now? What’s changed? Nothing.

But Wenger has changed. Yes, Wenger has changed. One of the smartest football men we were ever lucky enough to know has been dazzled by Fifa’s bright lights and shiny coins.

Where once he was an advocate for beauty and principles and charm and guile, he is now hooked so hard to Gianni Infantino’s horrible Fifa gravy train that it’s a miracle his arms haven’t been torn off.

Wenger – for those who have been asleep for a while – is a huge advocate of this summer’s month-long, 32-team festival of Fifa nothingness in America. As the Chief of Global Football Development at Fifa, Wenger feels the Club World Cup will help to grow the game.

He has heard the complaints from players and clubs and sports scientists about player burnout and mental and physical fatigue, and has batted them off the same way his Arsenal captain Tony Adams once did centre forwards.

It’s strange, though, because Wenger does other things for his Fifa coin, too.

Last October it was announced that the 75-year-old would lead Fifa’s Player Welfare Taskforce. Fifa are concerned, they say, about the demands of the modern game so Wenger and his friends are going to look into it for us.

When I looked at the Fifa website yesterday, there was an awful lot on it about the Club World Cup and not so much that was obvious about the Player Welfare Taskforce. But I am sure they are hard at it on everybody’s behalf.

Last October it was announced that the 75-year-old would lead Fifa’s Player Welfare Taskforce

One of Wenger’s greatest gifts as a coach was his innate ability to understand players

It’s a shame that Wenger has not managed to rise above all of Fifa’s double speak

We have come to expect such double speak and confused standards from Infantino and his friends. They have form. It’s a shame that Wenger has not managed to rise above it all, though. By standing on Fifa’s platform, he legitimises it all and they know it.

Does he know it? It’s hard to say. All that is clear is that this is not the Wenger we thought we knew.

One of his greatest gifts as a coach was his innate ability to understand players, to feel and appreciate what was good for them and what was not. He could smell football’s ugliness – and there has always been plenty of it – at 100 paces and would close his door on it.

For years – while other big clubs tarted themselves around the world chasing pre-season dollar – Wenger and his Arsenal players would be on the grass in the Austrian mountains. And then when the proper football started, they went on and won things.

He gave in eventually. He lost the battle. Once in Kuala Lumpur with Arsenal, I watched him paw at a playing surface ahead of a July game. ‘Somebody could get hurt,’ I later found out he had been saying.

Those were the things that mattered to a great man back then and for all intelligence and poise and equanimity, he felt the stresses and strains of the game deeply.

He knew how it felt to navigate the physical and psychological warfare of the Premier League. He knew how fine and narrow were the margins between success and failure.

And that is just one of the reasons now why it’s so hard to really believe that he looks at the overcrowded and exploitative football schedule now without realising deep down in his footballer’s heart that it is reckless and it is wrong.

For years – while other big clubs tarted themselves around the world chasing pre-season dollar – Wenger and his Arsenal players would be on the grass in the Austrian mountains

When the proper football started, Wenger’s sides went on and won things

Football needs a Club World Cup and a 48-team World Cup the following summer like it needs a World Cup every two years – that one was actually a Wenger idea – and if one of football’s truly great thinkers can’t see that then it’s time for the armchair.

Wenger not only carries double standards, he’s dangerous with it. He should be the sensible voice in Infantino’s ear, the one brave enough to pull him back from the brink of his gluttony.

Instead, he stands there piling the plate high. Just another poster boy for the excess that will do for our game in the end.

A Madley, Madley world

Ashley Young had his shirt pulled by two Manchester United defenders at Goodison Park but referee Andy Madley only saw one of the offences in real time.

It was, as it turned out, the weaker of the two tugs. Harry Maguire was not the real culprit. That was Matthijs de Ligt, who had used both hands.

But Madley had given a penalty solely against Maguire so was only shown that angle by the VAR officials. He reversed his decision without being offered the chance to see De Ligt’s offence.

Had he been shown that freeze frame, he in all likelihood would have stuck with his original call, albeit for a different reason.

Are you still with me? Possibly not. And that sums up yet another dismal episode in the life of a system that continues to fail and embarrass the Premier League.

Ashley Young lies on the turf after attention from Matthijs de Ligt and Harry Maguire

Why Mourinho’s conscience will be clear

Jose Mourinho could have used a different word when describing the behaviour of the Galatasaray bench during the Istanbul derby.

I am sure he regrets saying they were ‘jumping like monkeys’. But that doesn’t indicate racist intent or feeling. It just doesn’t.

Anyone who chooses to interpret his words that way are welcome to their side of the argument but I would imagine Mourinho will have slept with conscience clear this week.

Red alert for Carabao Cup final

Liverpool are moving inexorably towards their second league title in 35 years after midweek results but I was at Anfield on Wednesday and saw enough to encourage Newcastle fans ahead of the Carabao Cup final in a fortnight.