By Nick Mulvenney
LONDON COLNEY, England, Jan 21 - Emmanuel Petit
was a "fantastic" midfielder who was right to retire from
football after failing to recover from knee surgery, Arsene
Wenger, his manager at Monaco and Arsenal, said on Friday.
Petit, 34, revealed earlier in the day he had decided to
bring an end to a career that took in spells at Monaco, Arsenal,
Barcelona and Chelsea as well as a goalscoring contribution to
France's World Cup final triumph in 1998.
"I think it is a wise decision because he is in a situation
where he couldn't come back to a level where he was and I know
Manu well enough -- because I gave him his start when he was
18-years old -- to know that he's too proud to walk on the pitch
and be the shadow of the player he was," Wenger told reporters
at the Arsenal training ground.
"Somebody asked me today whether I would be looking to bring
in a player of his stature and I replied that you don't find
players of his quality available in January."
Wenger brought Petit to England from his former club Monaco
in 1997 and in their first season together at Highbury, Arsenal
won the Double of the Premier League and FA Cup.
"He was fantastic," Wenger recalled. "I feel his home is at
Arsenal football club. We were lucky at Arsenal to have Petit at
the peak of the career. He was a tremendous player."
Wenger said one conversation with former Arsenal and England
captain Tony Adams illustrated what a good player Petit was.
"One time when Petit was injured, I had a chat with Tony
Adams at halftime and the first words he said to me were:
'When's Petit back?', because when the centre backs played and
he was not in there, you could feel it at the back," Wenger
said.
"He played at centre back before I signed him and he knew
how to protect the central defenders and they knew what a good
player he was."
Asked whether there was a place at Arsenal for Petit to take
up a coaching role, Wenger said: "I had a chat with him when he
decided to stop playing and he hadn't decided what to do,
whether he will stay in football or go into business."