Arsene Wenger believes that the Arsenal board must have been either brave or absolutely nuts to have hired him in 1996.

Wenger has recently surpassed George Allison as the longest-serving Arsenal boss, a record set more than six decades ago.

The Frenchman was unveiled as Gunners manager in September 1996, in a time when foreign managers were more of a novelty rather than a staple in the Premier League.

And Wenger was so unknown in England that the London Evening Standard ran an "Arsene Who?" headline when the North London giants presented the former Nagoya Grampus 8 manager as the man to succeed Bruce Rioch at Highbury.

 "When you work abroad it is never easy because, frankly, they do not need you," said Wenger to the club's official website upon reflecting how it was more than a decade ago.

"It is difficult to put into context today because now every foreign manager arrives on a red carpet. It was not like that when I arrived.

"There was a history and belief in England that the foreign manager could not be successful. Now you have a different feeling; you think only foreign managers can be successful. That is wrong as well!

"When I think retrospectively, it was a gamble by the Board and that is the biggest surprise to me. At that time, to do what Arsenal did, you needed to be a little bit crazy. Crazy in the sense that I had no name, I was foreign, there was no history. They needed to be, maybe not crazy, but certainly brave.

"However I believe I was lucky to find the support I found at Arsenal and that is always important for success."

Wenger then led the Gunners to a Premier League and FA Cup double in the 1997/98 season, paving the way for more foreign managers in the English top flight, as well as upgrading his own managerial CV.

Asked to name the high-point of his Arsenal career, he responded: "To play a whole season [2003-04] unbeaten. No matter how much money anybody else has invested, nobody else has done that."

However, along with the highs, there have the lows. And the lowest of the lows, according to Wenger, happened in May 2009, a wound that the Frenchman is still smarting from.

He stated: "You always keep in your memory the closest thing to you. But losing the semi-final of the Champions League last year was the lowest point because we didn't play at our level."