Arsene Wenger has made the bold claim that Alexis Sanchez and Mesut Ozil will see out their contracts \u2018no matter what\u2019.<\/p>\n
In the cases of Sanchez and Ozil it is a brave stance and one that could surely cause severe anxiety down the line, given they are entering the final 18 months of their contracts and losing either man, let alone both, on a free would be a massive financial hit.<\/p>\n
But, on Thursday, the Arsenal manager refused to consider letting them go early, amid Chelsea\u2019s interest in Sanchez and suggestions that Ozil\u2019s wage demands may kill any hopes of a new deal.<\/p>\n
With Sanchez understood to be on \u00a3130,000 a week and Ozil the top earner on \u00a3140,000, Arsenal will not only have to smash their wage structure to keep the two leading lights of Wenger\u2019s team, they will likely have to offer both more than double what they currently earn.<\/p>\n
It is a delicate situation as Wenger builds arguably his best team since the Invincibles of 2003-04 but the Frenchman is insistent, for now, that he will not be selling his best assets.<\/p>\n
\u2018These players have 18 months on their contracts and, no matter what happens, they will stay for 18 months,\u2019 said Wenger. \u2018Hopefully they\u2019ll stay for longer than that.<\/p>\n
\u2018I can\u2019t give any assurances, but they are completely committed. Beyond that we will try to extend the contracts but I cannot make a subject of that. That\u2019s a normal part of negotiating. The less you talk about it the better it is. We will do the maximum we can for every single player.\u2019<\/p>\n
When asked if Arsenal need to keep two players who are so integral to their attack, Wenger said: \u2018Arsenal is a big club. It is not one or two players who will make the difference to the club.<\/p>\n
\u2018The importance is that we are today in a strong financial position \u2014 that was not the case before.<\/p>\n
\u2018That means as well we are in a position where we can plan our future and do what we want to do.<\/p>\n
\u2018And what is important is always to take care of the values of the club and the identity of the club and not to depend too much on one or two players. The history of Arsenal is bigger than that.\u2019<\/p>\n
STORY BY DAILY MAIL SPORTS<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Arsene Wenger has made the bold claim that Alexis Sanchez and Mesut Ozil will see out their contracts \u2018no matter what\u2019. In the cases of Sanchez and Ozil it is a brave stance and one that could surely cause severe anxiety down the line, given they are entering the final 18 months of their contracts and losing either man, let alone both, on a free would be a massive financial hit. But, on Thursday, the Arsenal manager refused to consider letting them go early, amid Chelsea\u2019s interest in Sanchez and suggestions that Ozil\u2019s wage demands may kill any hopes of a new deal. With Sanchez understood to be on \u00a3130,000 a week and Ozil the top earner on \u00a3140,000, Arsenal […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":26172,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","filesize_raw":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kfm.dembefm.ug\/staging_h\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26166"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kfm.dembefm.ug\/staging_h\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kfm.dembefm.ug\/staging_h\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kfm.dembefm.ug\/staging_h\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kfm.dembefm.ug\/staging_h\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26166"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kfm.dembefm.ug\/staging_h\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26166\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kfm.dembefm.ug\/staging_h\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kfm.dembefm.ug\/staging_h\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kfm.dembefm.ug\/staging_h\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kfm.dembefm.ug\/staging_h\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}