WORKING largely anonymously in Japan, all that changed when Arsene Wenger transformed Nagoya Grampus Eight from relegation candidates to runners-up in the J-League within a year of taking over.

Suddenly, the meticulous Frenchman had attracted the attention of Arsenal, while many others questioned whether he was the right man to succeed Bruce Rioch in the Highbury manager's chair.

Even supporters, the same fans who cast aspersions on the Rioch reign, doubted whether the arrival of Wenger to N5 was going to reinvigorate a club that had been treading water since George Graham's controversial departure.

But, looking back, Arsenal could never have made a more appropriate appointment. The fact he remains Arsenal manager for his 500th match this weekend highlights the high regard he is still held in by his current employer.

Only Sir Alex Ferguson and Alan Curbishley hold longer spells in charge of their Premiership clubs, but Wenger's contribution to the excitement of the Premiership can't be underestimated.

Eleven trophies during nine years in north London - including three league titles and four FA Cups - suggests he has been doing something right.

But arguably his biggest achievement to date was the way he masterminded Arsenal's momentous 49-game unbeaten run between May 7, 2003, to October 24, 2004 - a new Premiership record that left the whole country astounded.

He has had his critics too. Particularly those who disagree with the way he was the one of the first managers to introduce huge number of foreigners to his playing staff.

He set a precedent in February earlier this year when he fielded a starting XI without a single English player. There were four Frenchmen and one each from Brazil, Cameroon, Germany, Holland, Ivory Coast, Spain and Sweden.

He has made Arsenal a team of nations but, unlike many in the past - West Ham's class of the Florin Raduciou era particularly springs to mind - the Gunners' inter-continental flamboyance has been a pleasure to watch.

Thierry Henry, Jose Antonio Reyes, Dennis Bergkamp, Robert Pires to name just four. While the likes of Patrick Vieira, Marc Overmars, Nicolas Anelka and Emanuel Petit all played their part for Wenger before departing for pastures new.

Questions marks emerged when Overmars and Petit were sold, but Wenger - who made his name initially at Monaco where he had Glenn Hoddle under his management - succeeded in replacing them.

Similarly eyebrows have been raised this summer following the sale of Vieira. But only fools would write off Arsenal under Wenger.

Chelsea's involvement in Wenger's milestone game is also rather fitting. The team that has been so successful for nearly a decade against the club expected to dominate domestic football for the next decade and beyond.

But Wenger, a man who holds a degree in Economics after graduating from Strasbourg University, has an intelligence that is not normally associated with the football manager and he will not be ready to move aside for the Stamford Bridge brigade just yet.

After all there is the biggest fish of them all still to be caught by the Frenchman and that is the Champions League trophy.

Vieira cited a declining possibility of the European Cup arriving at Highbury as his main reason for turning his back on the club that made him a star this summer - Wenger is not as convinced.

Whether he is still in this country in nine years' time remains to be seen but you sense he will not want to move until he adds the biggest prize of them all to his glorious CV.