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Arsenal have announced that they are going to change their policy and no longer allow players to enter the final year.
It has been an issue that has dogged the club in recent years. Last season, saw the future of both Alexis Sanchez hang over the team for most of the season; Sanchez was allowed to move to Manchester United in January, whilst Ozil, eventually, forced Arsenal into handing him a monster new deal so as to not suffer the blow of losing both their main stars at the same time.
Meanwhile, this season, there is the case of Aaron Ramsey, who is out of contract at the end of the season, although, in his case, the story is slightly different, in that he was offered a new contract by the club, only for the offer then to be taken off the table for reasons that have yet to be made clear.
Now the club’s new head of football Raul Sanllehi has indicated that things are going to change henceforth saying “In general, I do believe that a player’s contract should never go to the last year, as a policy. But I don’t think I am inventing the wheel. Anybody could agree on that. Normally, the contracts of the players are for five years. You need to have a clear idea of what you want to do with that player when he is in the third year, at the latest.”
Sanllehi also admitted that he was not a fan of the January transfer window, and that the club’s supporters should not expect new arrivals at The Emirates until next summer.
Andy is an exiled English football fan living in Cyprus. He loves all sports but football is his abiding passion, and he still has dreams every now and then about scoring the winning goal in a Wembley Cup Final, even though his playing days are long gone. He follows most major leagues, across Europe at least, and has a favoured team in each. When he’s not watching, listening, reading or downloading podcasts about football, he spend his time worrying about his beloved Arsenal.