Wenger: I have not been offered a new deal

Yesterday, The Times reported that Arsene Wenger may be the recipient of a shiny new contract offer this summer. Today, when asked, Arsene Wenger took some...odd umbrage to that suggestion:

Wenger must be the only manager in football to be irked by reports that he will be offered a new deal. A report that Stan Kroenke had proposed an extra two years was swatted away as "absolutely false ... an invention"

This isn't all that unusual for him - he's never been one to agitate for anything contractually, as he says:

I have to forget about myself even if people who want to create unrest don't. I will continue to give my absolute best to do well next season and then after that, we'll see.

He also had some worryingly Arsene Wenger-like things to say about this summer's transfer activity, and whether the absence of Danny Welbeck makes him have to rethink what he wanted to do.

"We will have to try," he said. It will not, ideally, be someone just to make up the numbers. "When you buy you want to buy top strikers. There is an international shortage. We need to find the right person but we have targets and hopefully we can do that."

Wenger expects what he calls "an inflated summer" given the new television deal kicking in for Premier League clubs. He anticipates a number of deals being struck before the European Championship begins on 10 June.

Whether you want to take that as code for "Arsenal won't do anything again this summer" or not, it's certainly...well, it's certainly something that Arsene can be as consistent in his messaging as he always is. I think we all know by this point what we want to see; I just hope it's not confirmation bias to see these quotes and think "here we go again".