Arsene Wenger says that Alexis Sanchez won’t sign a new contract with Arsenal – going as far as admitting he’ll sell the Chilean if he can find a replacement this month – but that he’s optimistic over both Mesut Ozil and Jack Wilshere.
The midfielders, like Sanchez, are out of contract in June, and the Arsenal manager is targetting renewals for both to ensure that the job of building the squad isn’t as great.
The German is open to offers from the Gunners, and there’s hope on both sides that agreement can be reached.
“It looks like Sanchez will not extend his contract,” said Wenger.
“But we want to keep Jack and if we have an opportunity maybe to keep Ozil, the rebuild will be less deep than if all three left.”
Saying that talks were ‘very much alive’, the Frenchman was asked what it would take to convince the duo to stay.
“These guys want to win, and they want to make money as well,” he said. “So they want a combination of the two that big clubs can give them.
“Incidentally he’s [Ozil] won trophies with us. So he wants to fight as well for the Premier League.”
Get us Draxler. Convince him we have ambition. Maybe we can push Ozil over the line for a new contract. Stop buying band aid players and good potentials who will take time to develop.
Buy Mahrez too
Why is it that no one else is in for Mahrez? If he is such a good player surely Man Utd, City, Chelsea, Liverpool, Spuds would have signed him by now? Just a thought that crossed my mind…
Liverpool are interested, and all the others have good players
instead of thumbing it down, why not provide an answer/reason for me?
It’s nothing controversial but when you often hear people on here say ‘buy Mahrez’ and he still remains at Leicester, you would have to wonder why he isn’t snapped up by a top club after winning the league title.
I read that Liverpool are in for him.
But then… I read that we were in for Aubameyang.. so it’s probably a moot point
Ignoring the point with the Algerian I think the Ozil and Sanchez sagas amply highlight the issues at Arsenal. Sanchez the more committed the more passionate player wants to leave because he knows Wenger is not good enough to win him the trophies he wants to win.
Ozil on the other hand is still open to staying and playing under Wenger where he could deliver one good show in five and be hailed as a superstar.
I would have preffered Sanchez to stay and Ozil and Wenger to leave.
It’s not about trophies but about the money if not he would have remained at Barca. No one earns more than Wenger.
lol !
How long before the Arsenal in for Mahrez rumours start to resurface !!
The thing is, we need to add to the forward positions even without Sanchez leaving, yet all I see is Wenger only ever concerned with replacing. Draxler, Malcom, Pulisic, Pavon, Mikhitaryan, Lemar, Mahrez, Lucas Moura, Bailey, all of whom can do a better job than what we currently have in Welbeck and Walcott. Add any two of those, assuming Sanchez leaves then let Nelson, Campbell, Adelaide, Iwobi develop at their on pace.
draxler is mediocre, not an improvement
You’d have wonder how gullible Ozil is if we thinks this club are going to put together a side capable of winning the PL anytime soon?
You’d also have to question his ambition.
You might question those things if you were a skysports pundit, but I’m not, I’m an Arsenal supporter, so I’d be way too beside myself with joy to give a shit.
maybe he is aware that is exactly where we are as a team. And he prefers the idea of helping taking us that extra notch up. Dont forget hes already tastes the life of a galactico for a few years. Maybe its not his thing. How the fuck do we actually know.
Debatable…we have not challeneged for the league for over a decade, key word challenged there, compiled with the highest ticket prices in world football and continuous lies from top to bottom of the ownership and leadership hierarchy, those questions are the exact things we should be asking! Pundits are paid to analyse, we as stakeholders pay for success. People naive to think the FA cups will be seen as an accurate measure of success in years to come.
I was with you right up to this…. “we as stakeholders pay for success” Don’t know how many shares you own but unless you are Stan Kroenke, you are very much a passenger. If you refer to being a season ticket holder, that’s no different to having a pass to the theatre or cinema, you get to watch but have no say whatsoever how the plot or the actors develop. I love Arsenal, have done for more years I care to count and that will remain so, but I stopped spending a single penny that might end up in the… Read more »
You may confuse “stakeholders” with shareholders.
@Northerngooner There is a clear distinction between a shareholder and a stakeholder. Our club is treated as a business, the cost of our season tickets are argued to be a consequence of the new stadium , the new stadium is cited as a necessity to ensure success. I direct your attention to costs we incur as fans (also known as stakeholders if you care to check the definition). I will never stop paying to go and watch Arsenal because I love the team, but I sure as hell will never agree with the current business model and the regime until… Read more »
I stand corrected about the definition of a stakeholder as opposed to a shareholder.
My point still stands, though. Being either a share or stakeholder is pretty much a moot point and it gives you no say in the club’s affairs, unless you are Stan Kroencke himself, that is.
I completely agree with you in all the points you make, however, by handing over your hard earned cash at the gate or by buying the club’s merchandise, you are only perpetuating this toxic business model.
I watch Arsenal either abroad (mainly Spain) or just head down to my local pub.
I completely agree, the problem is we are pretty much a tourist attraction as much as we are a club these days. People have (and rightly so) given up their tickets for the game, the united fan base within the stadium has diluted from what it once was, not only from the move from Highbury but also due to the clubs impotent approach to challenge. The club has very much become a business and as long as there are people willing to pay to come and watch (myself included) the well oiled wheels of what really is a successful business… Read more »
money for old rope, like walcott
I’d say that’s pretty irrelevant. He’s a very good player and if we manage to convince him to extend his contract, it can only be a good thing, especially considering how useless we tend to Ben in these situations.
Now it will hurt even more when he leaves!!
Ozil would be crazy to stay. He can demand a huge signing on fee, move to a country where he isn’t scapegoated by the sporting press and get out of a club in termoil whose future is totally unclear. I wouldn’t expect even the most loyal, local lad to hang around while we try and fix these intrinsic problems and Mesut doesn’t owe us anything.
I think it’s more likely they’ve agreed to do it this way to take the sting out of us losing both. Release this story and sell Sanchez then Ozil walks in the summer.
Ozil’s finely tuned PR machine doing it’s work again. If he ends up leaving the club I hope someone does an in-depth article looking back at this whole saga outlining exactly how we as fans have been played by Ozil.
Ozil the musician, Wenger the bow, and us fans as the fiddle. What a mess.
He will probably be scapegoated in other countries too if he doesn’t play for the best team in the league. He has similar, or even better stats at Arsenal as in Real but the team around him isn’t as good which makes people question him and his attitude when the team doesn’t win.
Just 12 months ago some people thought the only reason Ozil would re-sign for us was because no other big club would take him. His form was bad, his workrate was highly questionable.
He looks great at the moment (after a few early season wobbles) but he’s a club record signing and hasn’t quite delivered overall – something he acknowledged in his statement addressing critics last season.
He has never adressed critics. He answered to media questions and said he ignores the critics. If this is “adressing the critics”…
Check the stats fella, he’s out performed every other player bar Sanchez comfortably. Being a record signing doesn’t mean it’s your sole responsibility to personally deliver Championships and European titles. Mesut’s done more than enough in tough and potentially frustrating conditions and I for one congratulate and thank him for his contribution. God knows where we’d be without him.
I cannot believe Ozil will sign up. A player of that quality and ambition doesn’t run down his contract if he intends to stay…
I do not see the ambition if that is strong desire on the pitch.
when he was at Madrid, he was immense but he was surrounded then by top quality players
Wonder what he has to do then… Running like a headless chicken and losing balls, running again, losing balls. Would that please you, Sir?
Probably off to Juve in the summer.
Sign dat shit!!
So, as far as Ozil’s contract is concerned, what are we waiting for?
One of the things holding stuff up is that he/his team wants the number 10 shirt for the m10 brand from Jack.
Another is the clubs future, you aren’t going to sign a new contract when you don’t know the slightest about where your workplace will be at in 12 months.
Oh great, just when I thought we were done with a stadium build. Where are we off to next, then?
Rumour has it Kroenke is moving the entire team a few miles up the road to a new stadium taking shape up there. A name change suggested is Tottenarse but nothing is decided yet. Apparently the sponsorship deals linked to the move and the change of name are totally awesome!
He, probably like most of us, does not believe we will build a team to challenge for said Premier League… at least not with Arsene
And like many of the squad too that are running down their contracts.
Ozil and Sanchez plus others have found him out and have had enough.
But players talk…It seems clear to me that we have not been able to recruit the players we need for various obvious reasons over many years.
It sends up a red flag round the world with other players asking/wondering why are top players at Arsenal are not wanting to sign a new deal?
I imagine the answer to them will be obvious…
Information about the next manager.
Alive in much the same way as Shergar.
How much more of this PR bollocks does he expect us to believe?
Shergar is alive! #Believe
In the same way Findus lasagnes are alive , maube
I lost a fiver on him last week
I wonder if he’s still got the audacity to suggest the contract situations are “ideal” for the club…
Wenger tends to buy well but is subject to his own faults in penny pinching. But in his defense he keeps his cards very close to his chest and for good reason. As illustrated by the City/United bid for Alexis, if not managed right, a rival can swoop in and make things very difficult. We are never first to feast for very good reasons in market. We will be out bid. Remember the Ozil capture, many simplistic people were having the usual moan about it being a ‘panic buy’ In fact they were buying into the media’s own manufactured crisis… Read more »
What kind of BS is that? Ozil fell onto our laps as did Sanchez. We got the leftovers. We were lucky they ended up being for sale towards the end when most clubs were done with their business. Panic buy Perez because he failed to land a quality striker, Bought Mustafi and overpaid because he didn’t buy anyone before the injuries to the CB ( Last season he was actually going to go into the season with Kos, Per(too old), Gabriel(inconsistent) Chambers(unproven) Holding(inexperienced) as the CB before he was forced to spend money and buy Mustafi because of the injuries.… Read more »
I struggle to understand why anyone would downvote this. Seems like a pretty good analysis to me.
Agree 2016 summer and the summer when we only brought in Cech were absolute shambles by the manager and the club. We could probably have challenged for the title if we had made 1-2 quality signings/signings in right positions.
This is right. That was the summer when we could’ve really pushed on, having signed Cech and previously Sanchez and Ozil. A top quality striker and midfielder that summer really could’ve made the difference. As it was, we stood still while others improved, and then Leicester won the league ffs.
I wonder whether Wenger will look back with regrets about not investing in that period, after the stadium had been more or less paid off.
Yeah we needed backups/competition for Cazorla and Coq, a striker to compete with Giroud and a CB. We got first nothing in 2015 and then Xhaka who was not what we needed and not the type of midfielder who could rotate with Cazorla/Coq as he is a different player to them, Perez who was a panic buy and never on Girouds level. Mustafi was a good signing though but not enough. We regressed hugely to the 2016/2017 season and could not cope with the injuries to Cazorla and Coq. Our midfield hasn’t been good since then (though there are signs… Read more »
‘Wenger tends to buy well’… you keep saying this santori despite people pointing out what crap it is. It was true in the past but no more. Ospina, Elneny, Debuchy, Lucas simply poor signings. Gabriel too. Mustafi & Xhaka totally over priced as of their contribution to now. Jury still out on Chambers. There would be a lot of debate on if Welbeck was a good buy.
His transfer record in the last 3/4 years is patchy at best.
As a manager and as a club they should know by now whether he will sign or not. If he wants to play for the club then offer the contract he wants. If he doesn’t want to play for us then sell him and move on.
Not really, i kept indicating to my boss that i was staying full time even when i went to do my a-levels, i knew if i warned him i was leaving or cutting my hours it would make the next 6 months difficult. So i just left him hanging when i just stopped turning up. They were assholes who refuse to give references and my boss never saw my value, only one on the department who could fillet fish, when we sold fish XD But yeah i can see ozil giving wenger non answers like “oh i just leave it… Read more »
You are a disgrace
Cool. I presume you have a problem with me not giving notice so i wrote out a list of all the things i felt justified my decision like fraud, pettiness and harassment to name a few then i released i couldn’t give two shits what ‘Greg’ thinks.
Fuck off ya cunt. COYG! Lets hope its sunny tommorow 😀
There is a difference though he is under contract. he knows when its up. He can’t leave before and can’t stay if there isn’t one. He had all season to get him and/or Sanchez to sign. He didn’t. He should have sold them both this past summer instead playing this game.
Greg was your boss?
Bloody hell Greg write him a damn reference
Your fish filleting company is slightly different to Arsenal Football club. Between Wenger Gazidis and Kroenke they should know what ozil is doing. To be fair as a fan it is pretty clear to us what he is doing.
A small difference between an entirely replaceable entry level part timer and a highly skilled, highly paid difficult to replace significant part of the operation. I can appreciate that as you grow up you begin to learn the ways of the world but really, get a grip.
clearly my point went right over your head. Quality and irreplacebilty are irrelevant what is relevant is wenger is under the impression ozil wants to stay, I was merely making the point that it is very very easy to lead on an employer with very minimal effort. Was the passive aggressive comment really necessary? Who are you to presume that because you are older you are suddenly more attuned to the society? If I’m being presumptuous I’m probably far more aware then you, the incident I referred to was years ago and I’m far more qualified and irreplaceable in my… Read more »
Sanchez and ozil played well with all that contrsct stuff
While I’m sure Jack will extend his contract, I can’t express how crucial it is that we get Ozil to extend his as well. Just give him the money he wants, I don’t care how much it is. But I’m afraid now that Alexis will go to City, United/Mourinho will do everything to get Ozil (if not now, then at the end of the season). That’d be just the worst possible scenario. edit: I’m not optimistic though. If he really wanted to extend his contract, he would have done so a long time ago. Our only hope now is that… Read more »
Nah, he’s gone for free at the end of the season.
Coyg get it sorted.
The emphasized pressure to perform and prove ambition in order to keep high caliber players is the only healthy thing to come out of these sagas.
Think AW is clutching at sraws a bit, as he knows his grasp on the club is slipping. The question is, will he go on his own accord or be forced out? That being said, have also always felt that there both is, & always has been, possibility that Ozil will stay. Any possible Sanchez deal has been a dead duck for ages now, & it’s been farsical for the club to have ever portrayed otherwise. The club is a complete shambles at the minute, & there seems to be no strong leadership either on the pitch or off of… Read more »
Renew Jack and Mesut, get rid of Wenger for a good manager and things may possibly get better.
If ozil wants to win the pl he isn’t staying
Why the fuck would he stay if he wants to fight for the PL? lol
I fear that if we wanted to keep these players we should have invested more in the rest of the team before now
Seems to me that’s why they have run their contracts down.
If we can keep Ozil that would be great, either way it would be nice if we didn’t make the same mistake again …
elvis is dead. Trump is a wanker and Ozil will leave.
LANS.
This season is over, if he is going to go let him, then sign a proper replacement then at least they can have a six month adjustment period.
Between them Coquelin, Walcott and Sanchez are roughly £400k a week. If we give Özil Alexis’s transfer as a signing on fee then use the money from Oxlade Chamberlain, Walcott and Coq to sign Malcolm we could be going into next season with our three key forwards on long term contracts, and a decent kitty based on us having spent a net £0 this year
Optimism, I like it!
Give Spanish Gooner Arsene’s job!
If ozil is really going to sign, which i highly doubt, he’d probably want us to prove who we’re bringing in to replace alexis as a minimum proof of ambition. If we go out there this jan and bring in 2 world class players (1 AM and 1 CM) then theres a chance.
Wenger should just go spend big on some class players (2-3) and shut us fans up for once. If he wants to buy cheap then stop talking about retaining the players at the club.
If we sell Alexis and sign some Brazilian kid, and then manage to keep Özil, then this will be like the 4th biggest Arsenal crisis I’ve experienced in the past 8 years.
I feel like Ozil truly respects Wenger and likes playing for Arsenal despite the disappointing outcomes as of recently. But, seems torn because he obviously wants to win the PL, and even more so now since he’s reaching the twilight of his career. However, he knows that is a tall order at this club with its’ current personnel and its’ ever-growing corrosive environment. Still, I’m cautiously optimistic Ozil may sign a 2 year contract – if given the right conditions, since I think he loves London, and loves the role he has here at Arsenal. Also, unlike Sanchez, who seems… Read more »
I’ve known Mesut for years (not personally, of course!) and i agree with you: i think you’ve well summed up the situation.
Yeah you can tell how enthusiastic Ozil is to stay, they’ve only been trying to get him to extend for 2 years. We are so weak its unbelievable.
I can just see Man Utd signing Sanchez for 30 million now and then getting Ozil for free in the summer (already been lots of reports that he wants to join them). Man Utd and more specifically Mourinho will be laughing their heads off that they’ve signed our 2 best players for effectively 15 million each. On top of that it leaves us sod all money to replace them.
Ozil will be aware this is very likely to be Wenger’s last season with the club and that Arsenal will be a very attractive proposition for some top managerial talent (though many do seem to be tied down at the moment). We could be on the verge of an exciting period for the club and if he stays, Ozil would be the fulcrum of the new team and with a very lucrative contract. At his age, he may be lured by the illusion of more stability and the illusion of guaranteed success elsewhere, but don’t write off our chances just… Read more »
Good point which I for one hadn’t considered. Thank you.
Ozil you magical beast. Sign that fucking thing and shut up the misery for a couple of weeks.
It is difficult to brook Wenger’s arrogance. I really admired him but we have been crying out for the same types of players for an age. He has not evolved fast enough and I dont believe that his coaching style will have us play consistent enough to compete with the teams that are financial heavy weights. These player want money and to win the league. These are two things that one very much has to question Wenger’s ability to handle. How do you convince Ozil, coming into his prime, that we are league winner? Last time we won the league… Read more »
if he don’t get what he wants then he will be off, and whatever he wants he is not worth it, we,ve got jack, who is far more influential than ozil so I say let him go
Beautiful player, yes. Win is the league like bergkamp or Henry could, no.
Yawn.
There is no comparison at all between the current team and the title winning sides. Put ozil in the invincible sand arguably he would be revered in the same way as DB10. And I say that as someone who names Dennis as my best player ever. Ozil is class but there is too much dross around him. He also seems to care which is more than can be said for that little shit Sanchez. Would be delighted if we keep ozil but he won’t win jack unless the quality around him improves..
Stevie Stevie Bould!
Ozil can want to fight for the Premier League all he wants…it aint happening this season. And if we finish outside the top 4 two seasons in a row, good luck convincing him that this is a club on the up.
Oh my. What are we to do? I love my club. I wish some of the people would love it as much, maybe then we wouldn’t always feel so negative at transfer times. I do hope Ozil stays, along with Jack and if I am honest the little chilean but I as I say honestly prefer a player who loves the shirt on and off the park. Unfortunately those days are now gone and have been since the glorious times of dominance. Maybe it goes hand in hand? Or maybe it is cupboard love. Might I also chance a LAST!… Read more »
Would be encouraging if the club responded to these departing players by bringing in some bona fide talent. Otherwise, it looks as if we are sliding into mid-table mediocracy. Top four, big six, then just out of contention?