Arsene Wenger was characteristically tight-lipped when asked about whether the FA approached him over the England job.

The boss was linked heavily with the role before interim manager, Gareth Southgate, was officially appointed after about 100 years of the FA hanging around scratching themselves.

When asked about it ahead of Arsenal’s trip to West Ham on Saturday, Wenger admitted that he believed Southgate was the right man for the job but kept his mouth shut about whether he’d been asked first.

“I speak always with The FA, because I am a long time in English football, so when things go on, sometimes they contact me, yes,” he said.

“Look, I need to keep confidential my conversations with the FA.”

There was a distinct shift in the way Wenger answered questions about the England job. When it first came about, following Sam Allardyce’s dismissal, the boss seemed pretty quiet on the whole topic, while club chief, Ivan Gazidis, was also a little cagey on the Frenchman’s future in north London.

“He’s been clear and we’ve always been clear, that’s a mutual decision as to how long he’ll continue,” Gazidis said at the beginning of October.

“Both need to be on the same page on that.

“Arsenal is not Arsène Wenger.

“They’re not one in the same thing. In a football sense, he has transformed the club.”

Meanwhile, FA chief, Martin Glenn, was very publicly flirting with our very much taken manager.

“He’d fit the criteria perfectly,” the FA chief said.

“Of course he would, as would a few others.”

However, a couple of weeks later, around the same time that it was rumoured that Hector Bellerin and Mesut Ozil were only willing to stay at Arsenal if Wenger did, the boss changed direction a little, hailing Southgate as the potential new boss of the Three Lions.

Could this have been the turning point where he agreed to stay on for another season?

Obviously, we don’t yet know. What’s certain is, Wenger is not the England manager.