Arsenal boss confirms star has signed deal until 2018

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Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger has confirmed that Per Mertesacker has signed a new one-year contract extension that ties him to the club until 2018.

Mertesacker was in the final year of his contract and with his previous deal due to expire in June, there were rumours that the defender may be heading back to Germany this summer.

However, having previously hinted that he was keen to activate an option to automatically extend the 32-year-old’s deal by a further year, Wenger has now confirmed that the club have triggered the clause.

It means there was no need for any negotiations and Mertesacker has now penned a one-year extension which ties him to Arsenal until 2018.

The news may come as a bit of a surprise to some as the German giant is yet to play a single minute of competitive football this season after suffering a serious knee injury back in July.

However, Arsene says that Mertesacker is now back in individual training and should rejoin the main group in around two weeks, and the boss will be pleased to have another experience player available during the closing stages of the campaign.

Speaking at his pre-match press conference this morning ahead of our clash with Burnley on Sunday, Wenger is quoted as saying by TeamTalk:

“He has an option that we have taken. There was no negotiation, just an option that we have taken,”

“He’s back in training, not with the squad, but he’s two weeks away now,”

“With the number of games we have it’s important that we have all our experienced players back and that everybody is focused to do well.

“We’re going through a moment of truth now, January until May is five months to go. You want ideally all your players with big experience back in your squad.”

I don’t expect Per to start too many games when he does return as Shkodran Mustafi has formed an excellent partnership with Laurent Koscielny but it will still be nice to have an experienced head like Mertesacker around the squad.

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