Arsenal: Aaron Ramsey contract situation offered new hope

Arsenal’s contract mess is halfway clean, but the second half needs resolution. Somehow, Aaron Ramsey’s portion is starting to look positive.

Arsenal allowed their contract situations with Mesut Ozil and Alexis Sanchez to get way too far into the danger zone. They were walking a flaming tightrope towards certain disaster when Henrikh Mkhitaryan happened at the last conceivable moment to bail the club out.

And Mesut Ozil did his thing, produced some magic, and stayed put. Crisis averted. At least, until the next one, which involves Jack Wilshere and Aaron Ramsey, neither of whom looked to be in a positive state as of a couple weeks ago.

For Wilshere, it was a matter of knowing too much about the situation and seeing a clear impasses. For Ramsey, it was knowing absolutely nothing about the situation.

Now, things have changed. Ever since Aaron Ramsey put in an absolute worldy against CSKA Moscow in the Europa League, Arsene Wenger has opened up about the Ramsey situation. And while he didn’t necessarily tell us anything we couldn’t have figured out for ourselves, he mix in some of the typical “read into this if you want” statements.

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Here’s what he had to say (via SkySports):

"I don’t want to convince a player (they should sign). I want the player to be happy to play for the club. Having players who want to play for the club is the way we want to play football and is in the values we feel are important to us. With the right amount of money we want to pay, all these things have to come together."

I actually really like the insight that Wenger offered here, particularly about not wanting to convince a player to sign. That’s how you avoid a mass exodus when Wenger leaves. It ensures that the players want to be here for the club itself, and not just for Wenger.

It’s Ramsey’s specific case that makes me want to read into these statements. “Having players who want to play for the club” pertains to him specifically, as he has many times spoken about how much he wants to play for this specific club.

Even when he was fantasizing about life in Spain, he was still clear that he loved the way that the Gunners played, and ideally, that won’t be changing as he hits his prime with the club on their way up.

Next: Arsenal vs CSKA Moscow Player Ratings

Just hearing this little bit, about the desire to keep Ramsey and the belief that he will stay, is enough to get excited about. He’s a midfield linchpin, something this club desperately needs.

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