AARON RAMSEY MAY be on the lookout for a new club after contract negotiations with Arsenal reportedly broke down on Thursday.
With his current contract finishing at the end of the season, the Welsh international was lined up to broker a new deal before the start of the Premier League campaign. Arsenal boss Unai Emery insisted in July that Ramsey would remain part of the club.
Despite featuring in each of Arsenal’s opening five league games of the season, Emery now appears to be ready to plan without the midfielder who has spent a decade at the club.
BBC Sport and Sky Sports both report that discussions have reached an impasse and that the club has made no comment regarding why these negotiations have come to a halt.
Speaking to the media back in August, the Arsenal boss urged the 27-year-old to focus on his match preparation and to put negotiations surrounding his future to the back of his mind.
“I said: ‘I want you focused only on training and only on the match, you show us the capacity to help the team,’ he told the press in August.
The contract is another thing for his agent and the club but we want and I need his focus only on training, only on the match and on his performance each day.”
Ramsey is currently the club’s longest-serving member and could become a free agent in the summer, if he is not sold during the transfer window.
He would have the option of signing a pre-contract with a foreign club from the beginning of January if a new deal with the Gunners is not forthcoming.
Ramsey has begun the season brightly with the North London club and even got himself on the score sheet during Wales’ comprehensive Uefa Nations League victory over the Republic of Ireland in Cardiff.
Having joined from Cardiff City back in 2008, Ramsey had been a consistent player in Arsene Wenger’s sides when fit and scored in the 2014 and 2017 FA Cup finals.
Arsenal sit one point outside the top four and welcome high-flying Watford to the Emirates Stadium this Saturday afternoon.