Wenger on his future and Wilshere

With his contract up at the end of the season, Arsene Wenger has long been fielding questions about what the future may hold for him.

Once again, the Arsenal manager was asked about it in Thursday’s pre-match press conference and this is what he had to say:

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on whether a contract is on the table for him…
Once again, thank you for caring about my future, but that’s not the most important thing. My future is in front of me every time I make a half-turn. What is important for me is that Arsenal Football Club does well, and I dedicate my whole energy to the club doing well.

on what the latest is…
I answer that question every week and nothing has changed compared to last week. That’s basically it.

on whether he has made a decision…
I have nothing to add to what I said last week.

on what factors will influence his decision on his future…
Ideally you want everybody to be happy. But as well, I think Arsenal is made of special strength and that strength as well is to be united when it doesn’t go well and that’s what we want. It’s very nice for you to care about how I feel, but it’s not the most important. I am a professional and I have to do a job and that’s what I want to do.

on discussions about Jack Wilshere’s future with Bournemouth…
No, no.

on whether he expects Jack to return at the end of his loan spell…
Yes. We have, at the moment, had no move from Bournemouth for Jack Wilshere.

on Laurent Koscielny’s comments post-Chelsea…
The comments that have been made were lost in translation. They have been twisted. But anyway, the players are responsible for their performance. The club works well when everybody does his job. The players are responsible for their performance and that’s all, not more than that. I believe the manager is responsible for the results and the team selection, the board is responsible for long-term decisions and the club works only like that.

on whether he asked Laurent about the quotes attributed to him…
Yes, of course. He didn’t mean that at all. When you have a disappointing result, you know what you get. People turn things around and we are used to that. We can deal with that.

on his analysis of what’s happened in last two weeks…
It happened because we played at Chelsea and it’s a difficult game. It’s down to the fact that we did not perform as well as we wanted, especially defensively. We made some mistakes that, as a team, you cannot afford to in these kinds of games.

on whether he has been surprised by the defeats…
I’m always surprised when we lose a game because I expect to win it before the game starts. We were also a bit unlucky because the first goal was absolutely scandalous. That changed the game as well because we started quite well, but from that point onwards it put Chelsea in a position that they are very good at. They defend very well and they are very quick on the break. When you look at how the second goal happened, I think we can only look at ourselves, and for the third goal as well. Overall it was a very even game on goal chances. The regret I have is that we didn’t make enough of the chances we created.

More polls coming soon!