Mirror: Sagna, Mertesacker, Rosicky to be offered new contracts

I was all excited about transfer season being over, so we could talk about actual soccer. I completely forgot that when the season starts, we go straight into contracts for a few months, then back into transfers in about mid-November. But at least this one is a positive one!

According to John Cross, now that Arsene Wenger has anointed himself the golden god of transfers, he's moving on to securing the players that he already has. Bacary Sagna, Per Mertesacker, and Tomas Rosicky are first up. Sagna, as has been discussed, is in the last year of his deal, so he's obviously a priority. Rosicky is as well, while Mertesacker has another year left after this one.

It should be pretty obvious why Wenger wants the trio to stay. Mertesacker has grown into an important leader in the defense and in the team as a whole, and has built a spectacular partnership with Laurent Koscielny. Rosicky has helped Arsenal into the Champions League the last two seasons with great spring performances, and has (for the most part) cleared up the injury issues that plagued him in recent seasons. Sagna has also recovered from injury, and this year has shown great versatility by playing well at right back and also in the center of defense.

So we'll probably be hearing a lot about this in the near future, until/unless new deals are signed.