Alex Song: "I am happy at Arsenal"

In an interview with Sky Sports, Arsenal midfielder Alex Song claimed to be content in London, in the face of interest from Barcelona (and Zenit St. Petersburg, which is new to me) in acquiring his services. The Catalan club have allegedly offered €15million (£11.7million) for Song, but he says the interest is mostly one-sided.

I am not going to lie if I said there is no interest but I am at Arsenal and I am happy at Arsenal.

It's not exactly a Wilsherian "I will never leave" promise, but it's a far cry from some other reports of Song's agitations to leave Arsenal.

While the Barcelona offer's veracity is still up in the air, their interest is clearly very real. Song could obviously quash it himself, but as Arseblog says, to do so would not be an intelligent move career-wise, even if it would make most Arsenal fans happy.

That said, speculation can easily be killed off before the window closes if a player really has no interest in a move, but then no player with a brain closes off options and it’s naive to think Song would, especially given the agent advice he’s bound to be getting.

Yeah, that about sums it up. My personal feelings are a little complicated: I like Song, but honestly, if Arsene Wenger can get £15-20million for him, that would be awfully tough to turn down, especially if the manager has ideas about replacements. On the other hand, shaking up a team too much all at once is dangerous, and Song knows this team and its system well - that's worth something in quality, too.

Depending on his actual contract situation, Arsenal either are in a very strong position here, or a less strong one. Sky claims that he has two years left, but I've heard between four and five years from every other source, trustworthy or not. (I'm dumb. It's 2014 or 2015, not four or five years. Arsene Wenger says three years, Arseblog says three years, I'm going with three years.) In the linked Arseblog News post, they say he's signed to 2015. In short, it appears that nobody knows but the parties involved, so this is likely to remain a source of much speculation for the rest of the month (and if Sergio Busquets is true to form, probably the remainder of Song's career). One way or the other, it appears unlikely that Song has already agreed terms with Barcelona, or anything like that.