Arsene Wenger has played down suggestions Alexis Sanchez and Mesut Ozil are on the cusp of penning contract extensions at Arsenal by revealing negotiations have yet to take place.
A story in this morning’s Mirror claimed Alexis was about to agree a deal that would keep him at the Emirates until 2020 with Ozil set to follow suit soon after.
“We have not started to talk about that with Mesut,” clarified Wenger at his pre-West Brom press conference.
“We are in the same situation [with Alexis]. At the end of the year they have two-and-a-half years left on their contract so we still have some time.
“We are not in a hurry. Of course we want them to stay here at the club and we will start the negotiations at some stage. At the moment we have not started them.
“From the New Year to the summer we will certainly start it [talks] with all the players who have two years to go at the end of the season.”
Asked if the Gunners are now in a better position to embark on negotiations than in previous years, when the likes of Samir Nasri and Robin van Persie pushed for early exits, the boss continued:
“Look, that depends sometimes on age. Yes, the difference is that today we are in a stronger position to negotiate than we were at that stage.”
So we’ll have to wait and see what happens on the contract front. There’s no doubt Ozil and Alexis are high up the list of priorities alongside Nacho Monreal.
Most of the rest of the squad have been tied down to long-term deals in the recent past, it’s worth remembering though that the delicate balance of power in the modern game means contracts are often rendered useless if a player goes public on a desire to move elsewhere. We’re not saying that’s on the cards with any of the current squad…a huge relief given the way things have panned out previously.
Damn.
Also, oh well, c’est la football.
I’m sure it is going on behind the scenes for both of them, it is far more likely to get tied up and then we hear.
John Cross is pretty reliable and an Arsenal fan so is unlikely to just make stuff up.
I think we should be quietly confident.
Agree re. John Cross. Impression is he is pretty well connected to the Arsenal and a Gooner too… No smoke without fire and all that but don’t really see how making up / releasing such rumours would benefit any party other than the newspaper.
John Cross gets plenty wrong as well as some right. He’s better than most other hacks but that’s just because most of the others are useless fuck-wits.
Also, given that Alexis and Mesut are our two most coveted signings in recent seasons, both with around 2.5-3 years currently remaining it’s damned near impossible that the club wouldn’t be looking to extend.
The papers, Mr. Cross in particular this time know if they publish an article/tweet etc to that ilk given then stature of the two players involved, there likely to be ‘about right’ even if the specifics of the deal is a made up ‘about right’ figure.
It’s not real journalism, nor is it particularly clever.
Well said. I have for some time now disagreed with this notion that John Cross is a journalist. Sure he groups words together, even forms whole sentences, but that is about as far as it goes.
Cross is certainly much better than the huge twat who openly shows his bias (Durham), or writers like Delaney who fail to hide their own bias by making snide remarks here and there in their articles.
“John Cross is pretty reliable and an Arsenal fan so is unlikely to just make stuff up”. He works for a tabloid newspaper dude, it comes with the territory. Have you ever read one of his longer pieces? Just the other week he wrote a piece after the Bayern Munich game basically saying we were going to do nothing this season. While he may well be proved right, this was a typical tabloid “one defeat and we’re in crisis” stories, completely ignoring what has to be described as quite exceptional league form (our Premier League away form is that of… Read more »
Knew it was too good to be true.
This had better not be the case, we need to tie them to long contracts before stupid clubs start to turn their heads, they both deserve better contracts at the strength of what they have both offered so far, tie them up NOW
TBH I stopped reading when I read that the Daily Mirror & John Cross were reporting anything remotely referred to as credible
Just wanted to say, re-Paris terrorist attack and your response ;fraternite’ – absolute respect to Arseblog for an eloquently written response. CLASSBLOG, not Arseblog.
Obviously just waiting to announce the renewals alongside the signing of Messi in January 😉
Off-topic: Bloomberg wrote a long piece on Stan Kroenke the other day. It’s mostly about his NFL ventures, but considering how little media attention he gets, thought some of you might find it interesting…
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2015-11-18/nfl-owner-stan-kroenke-wants-to-take-over-l-a-
Cheers. That made an interesting read. Have to say it doesn’t much improve my opinion of Kroenke. He sounds like a vindictive mercenary. Would that we had different owners.
Please rush, Arsene.
Sincerely,
Everyone
I do see Jonh cross as a spu*r fan
Scene: Petr Cech’s studio, Arsene’s on the drum-kit, practising “Negotiations”,
a complex and exacting bebop piece in 5/4.
Petr: Were you rushing or dragging?
Arsene: A little bit with the handbrake on…? (slap)
Arsene: Lack a little bit composure…? (slap)
Petr: You were dragging! (throws cymbal)
Arsene: O.K., O.K. Petr, I will get “Negotiations” done at the right time, honestly.
Huh?
I think I’ve gone stir crazy waiting for some Arsenal action.
I can only apologise.
Whiplash reference?
To be honest, I really don’t see why all this fuss about contract extensions is warranted. (Nearly) all of our high profile departures over the last 10 years were players who were still under contract. In the end, if a player wants to stay, he will stay, if a player wants to leave, he will leave (and we’ll get some money in the process), and if a player is unsure, he’ll run down his contract until he has made up his mind (see Walcott). You can maybe prevent a player from leaving for a year (see Fabregas), but if they… Read more »
I wish Wenger would be real sometimes and go ahead and say, “Well Nasri and Rvp were cunts and these two are good lads so we have less to worry about”
It’s what we’re all thinking. I would have gone with “prime cunts” though.
So what does that make Costa and Mourinho?
MaureenO is a ‘Special Cunt’!
“We are not in a hurry.”
If I was a player I’d be like “Hmmmmnnnn.”
I can’t imagine they’d give a fuck while they have over 2 & Half years to go on their contracts. If they only had 18 months then I’d probably agree with you.
I’d also guess that a major part of them agreeing a new contract would be that they’d want to know who the manager would be (as much as they could know) and until AW either extends or confirm he’ll retire, that’s difficult to factor in.
Now I’ve seen the press conference (on arsenalplayer), AW emphasises that the club really really wants to keep them but it’s just too early but the 1st step should happen in the second half of the season (or maybe he meant the 2nd half of next year…). The players (and more importantly their greedy agents) won’t have any worries with that statement.
I thin alexis will leave if we don’t win the league this season. After last season he came out and said publicly he was disappointed we didn’t win more. A player with his drive won’t stick around if we don’t win the big titles.
I don’t think he said that . Have you got a link ?
I’m pretty sure he just said now he’s won the FA cup he wants to push on and win the league .
In football manager I just tell them they’re important first team members.
Not ‘key players and indispensable to the club’?