Group F Marseille v Arsenal:ARSENE WENGER loves Marseille. "It is the football city in France," he said. "The life of every family is linked to the football club, maybe more than anywhere else. It is part of the culture."

The Arsenal manager painted a vibrant picture of southern passion and of the atmosphere it generates at the Stade Velodrome. Yet for him, Olympique Marseille will always trigger memories of dark forces, rage and recrimination.

Wenger took charge at Monaco in 1987 and the enemy was always Marseille. Yet it was about more than the 11 men on the field for the club. Marseille were consumed by scandal after it emerged the president, Bernard Tapie, had bribed three Valenciennes players to take it easy against his team in a league fixture at the end of the 1992-93 season. Tapie was later jailed and Marseille were stripped of the title they won that year.

There were many victims in the controversy and Wenger would count himself prominently among them. Although only the Valenciennes match was proved to have been corrupt, Wenger had his suspicions about much of the Tapie era at Marseille and feared his own players had been approached. After Arsenal’s Champions League exit at the hands of Barcelona last season, when Robin van Persie was sent off contentiously, Wenger remarked he had “seen much worse than that in my life. My own players were bought by the opponent”.

Wenger believed Monaco, the league runners-up to Marseille in 1991 and 1992, had been unfairly denied and there was also the feeling the skulduggery had contributed to his departure from Monaco in 1994. “We fought against people who didn’t use regular methods,” Wenger has said. “I am sure we would have won more titles in normal circumstances.”

Wenger made a surprise admission before he boarded the flight from London to Marseille for tonight’s fixture. He had not been back to the city, he said, since he left French football. The return might also have been significant for his long-standing assistant Boro Primorac, who was the Valenciennes coach in 1993 and who testified at Tapie’s trial. Wenger recognised a kindred spirit.

Here, he chose his words carefully about the scandal and emphasised the point that the hierarchy at Marseille had long since changed. But the period left a deep impression on him and as he looked ahead to the match that could fire Arsenal’s present campaign, he recognised that the lessons he learned could help.

“A career in management prepares you to fight against adversity and when a young manager asks me for advice all I say is, ‘Survive disappointments’,” Wenger said. “You cannot imagine a career of any manager without disappointment. It makes you stronger or you get out of the job. The period in France was an interesting experience in my life and you are somewhere the product of the history of your life and of your genes.”

Arsenal might not have the full Marseille experience because the Velodrome is under capacity, due to redevelopment work for Euro 2016. Didier Deschamps’s team have won only one of their first 10 league fixtures and sit 15th in the table – it adds up to a crisis – but they have won both of their Champions League matches.

Arsenal’s Andre Santos will start at left-back in place of Kieran Gibbs, who is out with a stomach muscle injury, but Aaron Ramsey has recovered from hamstring trouble.

Wenger was questioned over the notion he will one day take up a post at Paris St-Germain. “I don’t know,” he replied. “I have three years to go with Arsenal and I always respect my contract.”

It was the immediate future, though, that preoccupied him. “We are a bit less under pressure than we are in the Premier League, where we are absolutely in need of winning,” he said. “But this is still a game with pressure because the ties against Marseille will basically decide our Champions League future. Four points from the two ties would put us in an extremely strong position.”

Wenger says there is no medical reason why Thomas Vermaelen should not play in every remaining game of the season once he returns from injury, as the club’s doctors are wise to the freakish nature of his achilles problems. The defender, who has signed a new contract to 2015, has not featured since the Champions League play-off second-leg win at Udinese in August because of the injury to his left ankle that mirrored the one he suffered to his right last season and which ruled him out for nearly the whole campaign.

Wenger said the granting of a new contract to a player who has played 360 league minutes in the past 12 months showed their faith in him while he also hoped it represented a positive message after the summer departures and uncertainty over Robin van Persie who, like Vermaelen before he signed, has less than two years to run on his deal.

Guardian Service