Press conference

Wenger on Ozil's contract and Mkhitaryan

How close are we to agreeing a new contract with Mesut Ozil? The boss provided an update in Friday's press conference.

Arsene Wenger also discussed Henrikh Mkhitaryan's first few days at the club and this is what he had to say:

on playing Mkhitaryan and Ozil together...

Yes, our intention is [to do it]. As I have said before, we signed Mkhitaryan on a long-term contract and our intention is to keep Ozil at the club and hopefully we will manage to do that very soon.

on whether they are close to agreeing a deal with Ozil...

Not close enough to be optimistic and not far enough to be pessimistic.

on whether they are closer than in the summer...

The vibes I get from him commitment, his focus and his desire for achievement with the team is that he behaves like someone who is completely focused and committed and ready to commit but after that contract negotiations are what they are. We are not close enough to tell you 'Yes, he will do it.' I don't know.

on whether Mkhitaryan will make his debut against Swansea…

I haven’t decided that yet, I will certainly decide that on Monday, but he is available like everybody else.

on how Mkhitaryan is settling in…

Well. You see straight away that he’s a great football player, which we knew before we got him here. After that, I will know more about him in two or three days. We now have two or three good days to prepare [and find out] what the best possible position is for him and how quickly he can integrate the way we want to play. It doesn’t look like there will be any problem in there.