The Arsenal midfielder Mathieu Flamini will be 31-years old in a couple of months from now, but that is still pretty young for a modern day footballer. We have seen the likes of Ryan Giggs and Paul Scholes playing at the top level for a lot longer than that and our own club captain Mikel Arteta is already two years older than his French team mate.
But it could well be that Flamini finds himself at the Arsenal exit door at the end of this season. As far as I know, the central midfielder currently in his second spell as a Gunner will still have a year left on his deal, but Arsene Wenger may be thinking about selling him on in the summer, according to a report in The Telegraph.
The reason for this is the emergence of his young team mate Francis Coquelin, who has been earning rave reviews for his disciplined and effective performance away to Man City, especially as he managed to keep the excellent Spanish creator David Silva as quiet as a mouse. But Wenger and the Arsenal fans have seen Coqwuelin playing well for some weeks now after his recall to cope with the absence of Flamini and Arteta and now the club is set to offer him a new three year deal.
Our captain’s place is still safe apparently, but he is a different type of player to Coquelin. And there are strong rumours that Wenger will add a top quality player, possibly Morgan Schneiderlin, to the Arsenal squad in the summer, meaning that Flamini could well be surplus to requirements and the same will be true of his fellow Frenchman Abou Diaby who is oit of contract in the summer anyway.
Flamini does not have long to convince the boss to keep him and if Coquelin continues his current form, he might not get many chances either. So are Flamini’s days at Arsenal numbererd?