Up for sale Ramsey told he can leave Arsenal
Club prepared to listen to offers in January Talks continuing over future of striker Welbeck
He is on £100k a week but could expect £200k a week over the next four years
Arsenal are ready to listen to offers for Aaron Ramsey in the January transfer window after performing a shock about-turn in their assessment of the club’s longest-serving player and withdrawing their offer of a contract.
Ramsey and Arsenal had been very positive about the prospect of finding an agreement throughout the summer but, with the club’s wage bill running at record levels and after new head coach Unai Emery’s opinion was sought, there is no willingness to pay the sort of salary he would command.
Ramsey is on just over £100,000 a week, but could realistically expect around £200,000 a week over the next four years given his status and the salaries that are being paid elsewhere at Arsenal.
It is believed that Arsenal’s change of heart can be explained by a combination of Emery’s assessment of Ramsey, his wider priorities for the squad and the realities of the club’s spending limitations.
Other leading clubs will be alerted by news of the breakdown in talks between Ramsey and Arsenal – Chelsea were previously interested – and a player who was named in the team of the tournament at Euro 2016 will also attract interest in Europe.
Ramsey could sign a precontract agreement abroad from January, but is much more likely to wait until the end of the season and review all his options when he is available on a free contract. It is conceivable that the situation at Arsenal could also have changed by then.
Aged 27, Ramsey has been at Arsenal for more than a decade and already holds a significant place in the club’s history for scoring winning goals at Wembley in two FA Cup finals.
With Ramsey having been keen to stay and even regarded as a potential future captain, it is a decision that also suggests that Emery is forming definite opinions of his players and wants to prioritise other areas in his squad.
New signings Matteo Guendouzi and Lucas Torreira have both emerged this season in central midfield while Granit Xhaka, Mohamed Elneny and Ainsley Maitland-niles have all signed new contract extensions this year.
It is a reflection also of the club’s current financial position after the questionable award in January of three major contracts in signing Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Pierreemerick Aubameyang, but crucially keeping Mesut Ozil.
Those deals are understood to have been driven by head of recruitment Sven Mislintat and chief executive Ivan Gazidis at a time when former manager Arsene Wenger’s once all-powerful influence was waning.
As revealed by The Telegraph last month, Emery is facing significant restrictions with Arsenal’s wage bill during the January transfer window following a series of other deals that have been agreed over the past year.
Although Jack Wilshere, Santi Cazorla and Lucas Perez all left during the summer, the arrivals of Bernd Leno, Sokratis, Guendouzi, Torreira and Stefan Lichtsteiner, as well as the extensions for Xhaka and Maitland-niles, have further increased a wage bill that was already running at more than £200 million.
The situation will ease next summer when a new shirt sponsorship and kit deal cycle begins. The new main Emirates shirt deal, alongside a first separate sleeve sponsor, will alone bring in around £20million more annually. Adidas will manufacture the kit from 2019 instead of Puma, with Arsenal also hoping for an increase on that deal approaching £20 million a year.
Arsenal are still in contract talks with Danny Welbeck, who scored twice in Wednesday’s 3-1 over Brentford in the Carabao Cup and whose deal also expires next summer. Welbeck has Arsenal’s best goals-to-minutes ratio this season, but has been peripheral in the Premier League team.
“A few of the lads had a bit more of a pre-season than me, which made it a bit difficult; I came back a bit later,” he said. “I got 90 minutes last week, 90 minutes against Brentford and I’m just going to build on it from there and keep improving.”