ARSENAL MANAGER Arsène Wenger has confirmed the club was willing to allow Liam Brady to stay on in the role as assistant to Giovanni Trapattoni but says the Dubliner made the decision himself that he could no longer give both jobs the amount of time they deserved.

“It will be Liam Brady’s last game as Trapattoni’s assistant,” the Frenchman said in his programme notes for the 2-0 defeat at the Emirates, and that it was completely the Irishman’s own choice. “We gave him the freedom to stay or not, but he decided that he could not carry on doing two jobs.

“There was no problem with Trapattoni but he decided he couldn’t dedicate enough time to his work with the Arsenal Academy anymore.”

Brady announced his decision to step down as one of Trapattoni’s assistants in the middle of February and there had been some speculation that he had come under pressure from his employers at Arsenal, and from Wenger in particular, with the regard to the amount of time he was spending on his FAI work.

The Frenchman was clearly anxious to dispel any suggestion that he had influenced the former Republic of Ireland skipper’s decision to quit.

Wenger, meanwhile, described the manner of Ireland’s loss to France in Paris before Christmas as a “famous injustice,” and predicted that it would help to spur the team on in the future.

“The way France beat them in the play-offs was one of the famous injustices in sport,” he observed, “it will go down in history. Nobody will ever forget what happened to this team.

“But,” he continued, “we shouldn’t forget that they have quality. I was impressed by their intelligence, their organisational skills and with the freedom of personality they expressed against France. What happened them in Paris is bound to affect them, they will want to show now what an injustice it is that they are not going to the World Cup.”

Wenger was also generous in his praise for Trapattoni, who he feels has done well to get the best out of the players available to him.

“It’s the team’s attitude that strikes you most,” he says, “but saying that, when you look at the squad they have good players in every position.

“A lot of the credit for that must certainly go to Giovanni Trapattoni. Any manager who looks at his career must have a massive amount of respect for him. It’s just unbelievable, but he is still in the job with the same amount of enthusiasm. He is a figure of football, and he deserves all the credit we can give him.”

Meanwhile, Thierry Henry, heavily criticised by French fans for his controversial handball against Ireland, said he was not worried about the reception he receives when France host Spain tonight.

The France captain caused a furore with a blatant handball in the play-off second-leg in November. Henry handled the ball in the build-up to William Gallas’s equaliser that gave France a 1-1 draw and a 2-1 aggregate win.

“No fear at all,” Henry replied yesterday when asked about his feelings about returning to the Stade de France for France’s first match since the Ireland controversy.

“This game is not about reconciliation (with French fans), we just want to know where we stand against one of the best teams in the world.

“Unfortunately, I knew what would happen afterwards but it hasn’t changed me. It just allowed me to see the real nature of some.”