The formidable player and manager duo reunited at The World Economic Forum in Davos on Wednesday evening. Ian Wright and Arsène Wenger’s ‘In Conversation’ was the flagship event for Barclays, the Title Sponsor of the Women’s Super League, Women’s Championship and Official Banking Partner of the Premier League.

The event saw Ian Wright reunite with his old boss Arsène Wenger to discuss everything from the shortage of global talent, the future of Women’s Football, lengthy contracts, VAR, the Unify League and more.

Arsène on the global shortage of talented footballers

AW: “At the moment we don’t produce enough good players and talents don’t get a real chance in life. I feel that football has a responsibility to change that. A child who was born in a small village in Africa or in India and is talented doesn’t get a chance today.  When we analysed football all over the world, we found out that the most successful countries are the ones that have the best level of education in football, identification of talent, train the talent with good coaching programs and good competitions”.

Ian on the future of Women’s Football

IW: “In England, with the women’s league, I believe if you gave some owners the opportunity to back out of supporting the women’s game, I think they think they would, simply because I feel like they’re all about profit and right now, they’re losing money with the women’s game. And let’s be honest, not all clubs actually believe in what we are trying to do. For some of them this is just a box to tick. I really think that something needs to be done to incentivise people who want to invest in the game. We are playing catch up on every level, infrastructure, training, coaching and every level of development. And it does come down to money so if we can create an environment that encourages investment into women’s football in both the short and long term then we can really accelerate the growth but also the sustainability of the game. The game is not a charity case but because of the past it wasn’t allowed to be built up, so we are trying to do that now. So, it needs owners, individuals and corporates that will invest. We don’t have enough brands like Barclays who are going to support it right to the end and stay with it as it grows and works through the challenges on every level. So, for me personally, we need to find some way to incentivise people to put the money in that’s required. In England this is our national sport, so it is special and different”.

Ian and Arsène on the Unify League

IW: “I know they’ve come back with a new name now, the Unify League and they’ve thrown in promotion and relegation, but it feels to me it’s just the Super League in disguise. They’ve said they’re going to do relegation and promotion now. They’ve come in a different guise. That’s all they’ve done.”

AW: “I believe that relegation and promotion is part of our culture and of our club, and as long as I’m involved, I will fight absolutely 100% that that is respected. I don’t believe in a Super League. I believe in top level competitions, but with punishment if you don’t do well, and the rewards if you do well.”

Ian and Arsène on multi-year contracts

IW: “It seems we now have extraordinary lengths with the contracts; Cole Palmer, eight years, Erling Haaland, nine and a half years. Nicolas Jackson, eight years. Enzo Fernández seven years. What is that about, boss? Because I couldn’t get a year out of you!”

AW: “Because you were too expensive.”

AW: “I believe it’s important not to put the players in the comfort zone too much, especially with the amount of money the players make”

Arsène on how to motivate players

AW: “Once you are on a long-term unbeaten streak, the fear disappears, and the other thing is the ego. We all have an ego, that is very positive because it pushes us to be as good as we can be, but ego always looks for self-confidence and it compares yourself to others and is sometimes detrimental to the team spirit. When we didn’t lose anymore, this negative side of the ego disappeared, and everybody just wanted to be as good as they could be and contribute to the team, and that was my main discovery”.

Arsène on which manager he feared the most in his career

AW: “I never saw the competition as a game against the manager of the other team. I always saw the game as an opportunity to beat the opponent, and I was more focused on the quality of the players we faced than the quality of the manager, because at the top level, all the managers are good”.

AW: “Of course, I had a period where it was tense between [Sir Alex] Ferguson and me, between [José] Mourinho and me. Because we are all mixtures of wanting to win and hating to lose. Usually, the defensive coaches are more hating to lose. Offensive coaches are more wanting to win. But in all of us, both are in us”.

AW: A good coach is somebody who takes the best out of a potential of a team. That’s why I wanted to do the Invincibles, because there’s not much room for improvement after that.”

Arsène and Ian on VAR

IW: “VAR is it’s definite, isn’t it? If you’re offside, you’re offside. The handballs are really crazy. The offsides are really marginal. It’s very hard to accept when you’re a pundit, especially when your team loses and it’s by a toenail or something, but it is definite. We know that you’re offside, but I don’t think it’s the VAR. It’s the referees that are using it are just getting it wrong, this season especially. And I’m not just saying it because we got a couple of bad ones early in the season, but that does feed into it. The mistakes they’re making with the capabilities they’ve got and the equipment they’ve got, they shouldn’t be making them. So, for me personally, I’m not happy”.

AW: “I would say that the VAR is created to make less errors and more right decisions. On that front, it is successful. Then you have two parts – it’s the facts, on the facts, VAR is right – then we have this other side, which is interpretation.”

AW: “VAR helps protect players welfare from bad tackling which is positive. You also have the fact that when there is VAR, people say, ‘ah VAR!’ and when there is no VAR, people say ‘where was the VAR?!’.

Arsène and Ian on their second careers

AW: “I would like to congratulate Ian because he’s had a fantastic career and is now a great pundit, I watch you on TV.”

AW: “[On Goals for his new role at FIFA] I want the guy who wakes up in Zimbabwe in the morning on Saturday and the guy wakes up in New Delhi, who turn on the television to watch the Premier League, to have their own great league. Because in that country they don’t have the top-level game, and that’s the real target, to give every country a chance to be competitive and make football really global all over the world.”

Arsène and Ian on whether Arsenal can win the league

IW: “It’s a tough one. It’s tough. I genuinely believe it can happen; Arsenal can win the league this year.”