William Saliba has verbally agreed a new four-year contract with Arsenal football.london understands. Arsenal have been in discussions with the player for some time and finally, a resolution is in sight.
A full house is what Arsenal might use as the terminology to describe a perfect contractual masterclass ahead of the 2023/24 season. Going into the previous campaign, there were fears that many of the club’s best stars were nearing the end of their deals, threatening to undermine a Gunners side on the up.
No longer the top dogs, Arsenal have seen their best talents pillaged from the club in the past. Players like Alexis Sanchez ran down their deals and escaped to Premier League rivals Manchester United; bringing back painful memories of the summer of 2012 when Robin van Persie did the same thing.
Manchester City are now the side to fear and many clubs like Tottenham, Liverpool, Aston Villa and Leicester have seen Kyle Walker, Raheem Sterling, Jack Grealish and Riyad Mahrez picked off with the prize of a guaranteed title race too good to turn down. Arsenal are building toward being regular title challengers but there are still no guarantees after just one season of fighting it out at the top.
Yet despite the lack of this assurance, Arsenal have successfully renewed the contracts of Bukayo Saka, Gabriel Martinelli, Aaron Ramsdale, Gabriel Magalhães and Mohamed Elneny this season. This follows renewals for Eddie Nketiah, Folarin Balogun and Emile Smith Rowe last summer.
Talks for Ben White and Martin Odegaard are understood to be in the works, football.london understands and then there’s the matter of Saliba. So many were once sure Mikel Arteta had severed the potential for long-term employment with the club but far from it.
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Yet now the Frenchman is indeed due to sign his new deal with the club. Saliba’s importance to the side cannot be understated, and interest from outside is well documented, but should the Frenchman commit his future to the club, Arsenal will have completed their aims to renew the big three.
Saliba, Saka and Martinelli represent the future of the club. Losing any would have been disastrous but successfully renewing all three, should Saliba's new deal be confirmed, represents a massive achievement for Arsenal.
It’s the perfect start to what is looking like a new era for the club under Arteta. Back in the Champions League, challenging for the title and, importantly, keeping their best stars at the club for the foreseeable future.
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