Hateley played under Wenger during Monaco’s league-winning campaign before suffering a devastating injury that kept him out for two years.
“We won the league,” Hateley told Football Presse. “Then I got a real bad injury. I never played for two years and left for Rangers.”
Shortly after, Wenger stunned many by heading to Japan.
“I remember thinking, ‘That is Wenger.’ Going to study.”
Hateley believes Wenger’s move wasn’t random — it was preparation.
“He armed himself,” Hateley said. “Probably because of his lack of playing the game at the very top, he studied it.”
That obsession with learning, adapting and evolving, Hateley says, set Wenger apart.
And it laid the foundations for what would come later in England.
For Hateley, the signs were there long before Arsenal.
“That is Wenger.”