There have been a fair few Arsenal transfer rumours in recent weeks concerning the future Arsenal careers of three of the current playing squad, so Arsene Wenger was asked by the press pack to clarify what the situation is with Nacho Monreal, Mathieu Flamini and Joel Campbell.
The manager was quite expansive about the French midfielder, as reported on the Arsenal website, after reports this week suggested that Flamini had been told he could leave as he was surplus to requirements and would not be likely to play much. And perhaps the theory that he either wants a pay-off or to see out the final year of his contract could be true judging by Wenger´s words.
He said, “I expect him to be here in September. I spoke to him. At the moment he is not involved but he has no intention of leaving. He will be involved at some stage. He works very hard and his intention is to stay.”
While it looks like we may be stuck with Flamini like it or not, the situation is different with out first choice left back Nacho Monreal. There was some concern that he could be heading back to Spain and La Liga until recent reports claiming that we had agreed a new three year contract extension, but Wenger has now revived those earlier concerns.
He revealed, “No. I’m happy with his performances but at the moment we are not in negotiations for a new contract.”
I suppose the Monreal situation is not desperate yet as he has a couple of years left on his current deal and as long as he is not pushing for a move away we are okay. One player who does seem pretty keen on leaving is the young Costa Rican striker Joel Campbell. He has been linked with a number of clubs this summer and it seems clear that we will not try to stop him signing for one of them, but Wenger has denied the rumours that an agreement with Serie A club Palermo, or anyone else for that matter, is in place.
Wenger declared, “We haven’t got anything concrete from anybody.”
So as far as we know and until anything changes, it looks like these three are still part of the Arsenal squad.