Unai Emery has revealed that Alex Iwobi will sign a new deal at the club.
While Arsenal are yet to officially confirm the contract extension, it’s thought the Nigeria international, as reported the other day, will sign terms that keep him at the Emirates until at least 2022.
The 22-year-old has 98 appearances for the Gunners to his name and last put pen-to-paper on a deal back in 2015.
Asked about Iwobi while in Singapore, Emery replied: “I have the information, he is near…my information is he will sign to stay with us.”
Iwobi, like fellow World Cup returnees Mohamed Elneny and Mesut Ozil didn’t feature in yesterday’s 3-1 penalty shootout defeat to Atletico Madrid but could get a few minutes on Monday when we face Paris Saint Germain.
“Mesut, Elneny and Iwobi are working with us – my first impression is very good,” added the Spaniard.
Good news that we’ve tied down another young prospect and here’s hoping Unai can help Alex go to the next level. After a bright start to life in the first team his progress tailed off a little last season…the ball is very much in his court now.
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Credit to our correspondent out in Singapore, Hatta Aziz of boothype.com – for more from the tour, including behind the scenes Instagram stories, check out instagram.com/
He’s young, an international, likely to improve a lot and hence I say we should keep him and hope he gets a ‘take-off’ season where he becomes a great player for us.
Here’s hoping for him.
I was of the opinion 25 million was a good price for him as hes not really pushed on, but I’m hoping that’s a coaching issue across the squad.
I’m sure we could still get a decent price in a year if he doesn’t improve
I’m surprised “coaching issues” are so regularly mention by fans. I don’t expect Emery and the new setup to be miracle workers and I certainly don’t expect them to be much better than Arsene and his coaching team. Failure to win the league stems from lack of competitive investment. And that is Board and ownership issue.
You mean to say we did not have a competitive squad for past 10 years?
How do you explain the repeated meek submissions to the bayerns and the barcas and even more so to Monaco and Milan?
How do you justify the embarrassing away defeats against the big teams (8-2, 6-1, 5-1 etc.)
How do you explain not taking the absolute golden chance to win the league in 15-16?
I really adore Wenger. I would love to see him the CL and even the PL with some other club. But, from Arsenal, he had to go.
I don’t want to argue about your opinion, but I am really tired of one argument people make: Arsenal missed the chance to win the league in the season when Leicester did. Why can’t Liverpool or Spurs or even Everton supporters say that, with exactly the same justification? Why was it a failure for Arsenal rather than for the two Manchester clubs and Chelsea? (A sub-theme of this is that it was Wenger who missed out on Kante–unlike the other 19 clubs in the Prem, and PSG, Barca, Madrid, Bayern, etc.)
with all due respect this is lame. its like we are desperately to find excuses for the fact that we couldnt win it . there’s nopoint comparing arsenals failure to win it that year to other teams. because manchester teams and chelsea teams sure played poorly that year , that doesnt happen too often. it was only a few years since united won the league and city won the league 2 seasons before that and with pep two seasons after that. chelsea won the league before and after leicester won the league. The point is they all fuk up for… Read more »
The majority of players we’ve had over the last ten years plateaued and stagnated- that’s not a board issue
This is nothing new. Players comein (like Smith Rowe, Nketiah and Nelson before) impress with no pressure on them. Ad they get on, they will become more known quantities and other teams will adjust to them not just Iwobi but Bellerin. Ramsey and Walcott went though siilar issues arguably Jack and they aall turned good at 23yrs. That said, there is some truth to the fact that Wenger does not provide sufficient detailed direction to improve these players earlier. We see Torreira at 22yrs already fairly accomplished. We have a gaggle of young Cbacks – Holding, Chambers, Mavro (all brilliant… Read more »
We face PSG tomorrow, Saturday July 28th.
Great that we’ve tied Iwobi down on a new contract. Am looking forward to his improvement & show us what he’s got.
Looking forward to seeing both Ozil and him take the field tomorrow!
Iwobi is soo underrated by our fanbase. Yes he is inconsistent(like many young players are) but he’d be rated higher if he was Brazilian. He has the physical and technical qualities to be world class. Shocking how most people preferred he got sold for 25m while the likes of Richarlison move for 44m.
Compared his stats to the likes of Richarlison, Pulisic and Coman and I was shocked he stacked up favorably to them yet many want him sold.
Spot on. Most of the fan base are too easily prey to media machinations. They imagine things to be worse than they are for certain players and over inflate others to satisfy their fantasies. Case in point Mustafi. Granted he needs to improve and has been culpable for some mistakes but considering the first season of Koscielny littered with red cards, penalties conceded and own goals, I don’t see the issue with the German. He is the mobile successor to Koscielny and has put in the most intercepts in the team last season. Just yesterday’s game alone, he came up… Read more »
I think Iwobi reaching his potential is down whether he is willing to put the hard work in. He has looked heavy at times and often tails off during games. Hopefully emery can push him to a new level of fitness and then performances will follow. Also think he plays best from a central role rather than wide.
Its also down to where we play him.
Monday ??…. I thought the PSG game was tomorrow – which is, like, Saturday man….
It’s the heat…kinda confuses people….
All the guys Arsene gave a chance to will really need to step up in the next couple of seasons. They let the previous manager down quite a few times and it is about time they start producing. Iwobi has good qualities. I hope he can do them justice.
I don.t think Emery will tolerate underperformance. Looks like he means business. Might take a year or 2 but I believe in him. Shape up or ship is the message i.m getting. About time too
Ship out*
Ship out – Jenkinson, Campbell, Akpom, Asano arguably either of Welbeck or Perez.
Ospina I presume is on his way.
For an average of 10m right ?
I don’t see Mslintat doing any better a job shipping out dead wood.
Sold the Jeff too early (Much like he got rid of Giroud early to accommodate Auba but expense to europa)
They won’t find it so lenient with Unai.
Oh.
I’m convinced that there is a good player in there somewhere. Definitely failed to kick on over the last couple of seasons but that may be more down to the previous regime and our antiquated coaching methods. Homegrown as well.
“antiquated coaching methods”, you make it sound like Tony Pulis or Neil Warnock were our managers.
Its not like we’ve seen any obvious improvements thus far.
Tracking back issues still persist. Holding still got beat too easily bc he dived in, lost Grameiro once with a ball over the top which thankfully was ajudged off side…just.
Much of the improvements at the moment are imagined frankly.
Its still work in progress and tactically we are still very familiar to Wenger era.
Yeah, no improvements so far in the ZERO competitive games under the new manager..
I swear in every interview Unai is just is like “JESS EES GOOOD” “YES HE’S GOOD” “Iwobi?…yeah he good” “Gazidas? goood.”
Obviously it ‘s not his fault his grasp of english isn’t that “good” but it’s funny how the fan base seem to really believe that he’s come and changed everything for the better.
People relentlessly straining to garner genuine insight from his comments and coming away overjoyed at “good this” and “good that” has been something I’ve found pretty darn funny this summer.
If only Wenger knew it could be this easy.
Firstly Emery made good first impressions on Emery so this is not criticizing. I completely agree with you. Most of the fans loves jumping on a bandwagon and ours do that quite a few times in one season (feelings towards Ozil are a great example). But I would also like to mention one another thing – transfers. I am pretty sure that if Wenger was still here then this transfer window wouldn’t be such a “hit”. I believe that fans wouldn’t be happy with the signings and they would call him unambitious and skimp. They also wouldn’t say “if he… Read more »
Made good first impression on me*
Wenger transfer window brought in Alexis, Ozil top end quality other teams would have gladly been happy to land. You are talking about maybe Torreira as quality this window but the rest of the players brought in frankly, not many of the top teams would care for hence the alacrity in getting the deals done. The Mslintat era has NOT been improvement on Wenger/Law If anything it has been suspiciously convenient to his old contacts. We are still buying Squillaci type gap fillers like Papas and Lichsteiner. Lichsteiner I feel is unnecessary but I don’t mind so much but Papas… Read more »
Are you fkn serious?
The main thing holding Iwobi back is mostly composure and fluctuating form and they are both things that tend to iron out with age. He’s still quite young.
He was very close to The Jeff by all accounts so hopefully he’s just had the ‘kick up the arse’ he needed to push on as this coming season is probably his last chance to convince he’s a top six player.
Would have kept the Jeff for one more season. He had been looking good in U23s last season and was the more impressive in pre-season (albeit of course Guendouzi plays a different role) Again we are jumping the gun early pushing out certain players (giroud comes to mind) There is little strategic thought in the way Mslintat conducts his buying and selling. We have so many more dead wood material to hawk off first – Jenko, Akpom, Asano, Campbell. Still nothing done on them, instead we get rid of an improving young player with potential in squad considering BOTH Ozil… Read more »
His development did hit a rock but it was only a small rock. I think he made a progress in the last season even though many don’t want to admit that. Great news.
Its over exaggerated by typical facile fans. He was slightly inconsistent but it is atypical of a 22yr old. If we remember, both Walcott and Ramsey were also deeply frustrating to watch at similar age but then both hit purple patch when turned 23yrs. I feel part of Iwobi’s issue is we are not playing him to his best positional strength. We tried to have him as a winger chiefly bc we were out of options there (No more Gnabry, the Ox, Walcott or Alexis) but he had a hard time playing with back to goal. When he dropped deeper,… Read more »
Why not? He is coming into 23yrs which is the age players tend to mature and get more consistent. He could be the X factor for us. We lack players who have ability to engage opponents on the dribble. BOTH Nelson and Iwobi may have a pivotal role to play in wider areas for us. However, I also see Iwobi’s utility in deeper midfield. He has the strength to protect the ball (Guendouzi was falling over at the slightest brush) Plus he has the technical skils to get around in congestion but more so from a deeper position, he can… Read more »
Have been reading a lot of Iwobi bashing on t’interweb by “gooners”… Dont understand it? Hes a bloody good player, who could become class!!! Proper coaching etc, new manager… Fresh start. I wish all fans got behind our players 🙁