The man who revolutionised the beautiful game, went toe-to-toe against the best manager football has ever seen (in my completely unbiased view), and achieved a feat in English football that no one has ever managed to replicate, is in love with the Tour too.

But looking at it another way, who would've thought a French man who devoted his life to sports wouldn't be in love with one of the biggest sporting events in France?

Spotted in the Alpine commune of Les Gets before the départ of yesterday's glorious stage with five-time winner Bernard Hinault, whose victory in 1985 remains the last time a Frenchman won the Tour, Arsène Wenger was asked by ITV what was he doing there?

"Because I'm French!" he remarked.

e then got to sit in the race director's car at the front of the peloton. Wenger also told Eurosport: "I'm a close friend of Christian Prudhomme, he invited me here, and I want to see if it's like the dressing room of a football team!

"I want to see how the race is working from the inside, and I've been given the opportunity and I don't want to miss it."

David Walsh from the Sunday Times, also at the race, asked Wenger if he's a fan, to which he replied: "In my childhood I saw the Tour de France in my village [Duttlenheim in Alsace] so you can never forget this.

"It’s a World Cup every year, that’s what it is. The dream of every cyclist is to win the Tour de France, that is why we are all interested in the Tour. As well, it is a sporting event people don’t have to pay to watch."

Any differences between cycling and football, Le Professeur?

"When you play football you think it is hard, you think we suffer too much,” he said. "Then you watch the cyclists in the Tour and you think we are nothing. So we [footballers] have to push ourselves a bit more. What the cyclists do is encouragement for other athletes to push themselves more.."

He had time to assess this year's Tour too. "I have watched it, of course. Two exceptional champions and everyone wondering who will give in. It is an exceptional fight," he said.

Wenger added: "They are above everybody and have separated themselves from everyone else. So you have two Tours this year, Pogačar and Vingegaard fighting for victory, the rest fighting for third place."

He also said that he believes Arsenal will win the Premier League this year, so maybe I won't go around asking him for Tour predictions... (This statement is once again, based on your live blog host's completely unbiased perspective)

Well, I hope Wenger would be glad to know that the Arsenal squad has been cycling to work lately...