It takes collective will to succeed, but as the countdown starts to the biggest game in our history, I don't think anyone at Arsenal will begrudge Arsene Wenger his moment at the pinnacle of European club football.

He has completely transformed the club. We thought we had a good training facility, however, his rationale was that if the club wanted to attract top players, the facilities had to be more sophisticated. In his calm, reassuring way, he convinced the board to spend £10m on a new centre, and a few years after that, plans were put in place to build a new stadium worth £400m.

Although the board has always been prepared to respond to both the possibilities and the challenges presented by the Premier League and the Champions League, Wenger has created the current climate in which Arsenal are capable of competing consistently with Chelsea, Manchester United and Liverpool on the home front, and with Barcelona, Real Madrid, AC Milan and Juventus in Europe.

Soon after he arrived in 1996, he introduced a professionalism that wasn't there before. He made players realise that if they wanted to prolong their careers they had to be better prepared physically and they had to improve their diets. The likes of Adams, Bould, Winterburn, Dixon and Parlour all benefited enormously from his influence, and not only did Wenger get them to see the future, and to adapt, he also brought them on as footballers.

Suddenly, Adams and Bould were no longer players who simply stopped the opposition and kicked the ball away. He added a whole new dimension to their play, and where once they were regarded as just tough customers, they were now using the ball intelligently. Solid, dependable players became excellent footballers.

There's a newer breed of coach out there now which has looked at the game in a more logical, scientific way. Because he wasn't a great former player, and because he wasn't necessarily depending on a formula that he learned during his playing career, Wenger has probably been more open to change.

While it's obvious the club believes in him, you sense he has a strong belief in his own methods. He is calculating, intelligent and I've never known him to make knee-jerk decisions. He brings a calmness to management that's not so common in today's game and unlike, say, Alex Ferguson, who is the sort of manager who appears to thrive on confrontation, he is convinced that players perform best in a calm environment.

He expects an extremely high level of professionalism from his players, and that's why one or two have fallen by the wayside since he took charge. Arsenal is no different to most clubs in that we have our crises, our differences of opinion and our internal politics, but we rarely have to deal with major controversies or blow-ups in the media. He manages to keep almost everything under wraps.

If a player upsets the status quo in the way that Sol Campbell did this season, Wenger invariably bides his time before making a decision. He's never out of control in the dressing room even if there has been a bad performance, and there's a consistency with regard to the players no matter what the results are.

He might have been underestimated when he first arrived, but he quickly demonstrated that he wasn't afraid to make hard decisions. More recently, take the case of Patrick Vieira who he sold without too much fuss when it was least expected, and think also of the clamour there was for Michael Owen to be brought to the club as an attacking partner for Thierry Henry. Wenger resisted popular pressure, and that's not easy for a manager to do.

Wenger has never been someone to splash out big money for players, so it's not yet clear what may happen in the transfer market this summer. Arsenal have to be creative in the way they are trying to compete with Chelsea, as do Manchester United, but even if he had the financial resources, I don't think Wenger would ever pay £20m for a reserve like Chelsea have done.

The Campbell situation will be looked at, but maybe the emerging Johan Djouru will be moulded in the same way as Kolo Toure, and it's possible that new players might be needed to supplement Gilberto and Cesc Fabregas. It's no secret that Wenger would want Henry to commit, and while I can only see Henry leaving for Barcelona, if he goes, Wenger will move on and try to produce a new alternative, as he has done before.

It was ironic during the game against Spurs that he was complaining about someone not having seen an incident, and we've heard him say when Arsenal have been knocked out of the Champions League that the Premiership is more important. I don't think it necessarily helps for a manager to reveal his goal, but take it that Wenger has a burning desire to win the Champions League.

After three Premiership titles, four FA Cups, two Doubles, and going unbeaten in the league in 2004, success in Europe would crown a great managerial career.