Arsene Wenger is on the brink of becoming the first foreign coach to win the English Premiership but, with the title almost within Arsenal's grasp, he knows there is still one more pressure to overcome.

Home victories against Derby County tonight and Everton on Sunday for a team which has already cruised to eight League wins in a row and been beaten just once in their last 27 matches, will leave champions Manchester United helplessly handing over their crown.

But Highbury's French manager is acutely aware of the demands of expectancy that now sit on his shoulders.

"You can never escape the history of a club like this," he said. "At some clubs success is accidental sometimes but at Arsenal it is compulsory.

"There is a history of success at Highbury that makes you feel you must always work very hard to achieve more. It is a pressure, of course, because I know I cannot go to work every day and say my target is to finish 10th to 15th in the table. People would laugh at me.

"But whatever happens now I know the team has had a very good season. What has happened is done and we can already be pleased with the quality of our performances," he added. "We are in the last 100 yards of the title race and I'm positive, concentrated and relaxed. I know the players are, too.

"I am not nervous in any way because the mood in the dressing room is very good and we know we just have to continue the way we have been doing things and then it is done.

"But the first thing you learn every year is that the very next game is always the most important. The thing right in front of you is always the biggest. And it is my job still to keep everything calm and relaxed."

Even United boss Alex Ferguson admits he is convinced that only a freak collapse can now stop Arsenal winning their first title since 1991, despite his champions staying in contention with last night's 3-0 win at Crystal Palace.

But Wenger recognises the need to revive the glory Arsenal enjoyed when former boss George Graham captured six major trophies in eight years - and which has been virtually an obligation for successive managers since the fabulous success of the Herbert Chapman era in the 1930s.

And the latest overseer of Highbury's dream factory knows it will not be sufficient for history to merely record that it took a foreign manager to make Arsenal the best in their native land again.

"It is always difficult to know how people see you but I just feel more a manager who loves football than specifically one that comes from a different country. I feel that football is my nationality really," he said. "For me there are many very good English managers here. The situation for every club is very different but I don't think that just because a foreign manager would win the title every other club will say they must have one.

"I really don't know the managers here very well yet. People might say there is something between Alex Ferguson and me but the truth is it is just a friendly hello on the few occasions we meet," he added. "And I didn't look especially at different managers when I came to Arsenal. I just concentrated on my job and tried to find the best way we could to fight at the top of the League."