Mikel Arteta plays down reports Arsenal to offer contract extension
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Published 23/02/2022 at 12:26 GMT
Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta has played down reports the club will offer him a new three year contract this summer, giving the Spaniard a pay rise which would earn him £8.3m a year. The former captain’s current deal is due to expire at the end of the 2022/23 season, but Arteta says “things will happen naturally”.
Mikel Arteta has played down reports he could be offered a new improved contract at Arsenal
Image credit: Getty Images
Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta has played down reports suggesting he could be offered a new, improved contract this summer.
The former club captain has a deal which lasts until the end of the 2022/23 season and The Sun claims the Premier League side want to give him a new three-year contract worth £8.3m per year.
Arteta is reportedly on £5m per year currently and he also offered to take a 20 percent pay cut while football was played behind closed doors during the worst of the coronavirus pandemic.
Arsenal are four points off the Champions League qualification places, with three games in hand over fourth placed Manchester United. The first opportunity to claw back some of that deficit will be against Wolves tomorrow night.
“Listen, it’s just that I am really happy here and my aim is just to build, with the club, a winning team,” Arteta said ahead of that match.
“A team that people enjoy watching, that they can identify with and that can transmit what we want football-wise and as an organisation.”
Arsenal go into tomorrow’s game on the back of two successive wins after hitting a sticky patch since the turn of the year having registered five games in all competitions without a victory, which included a surprise defeat at Nottingham Forest in the third round of the FA Cup.
Arteta says they are making progress and although he would not be drawn on reports he could be rewarded for that, he hinted a new deal would be forthcoming if they continue on that upward trajectory.
“I just think things will happen naturally, as they have happened over the last few months, and our focus has to be delivering what we want to do.
“I am happy with the direction we are taking. I’m not happy with where we are based on where we want to be, that’s for sure.
“Because we want to be competing with and challenging the best teams in this league in consecutive seasons.
“We are not there yet but I think the team is evolving in the right direction. The project and the phases that we proposed – they are happening and there are positives to take, but we are not there.”
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