Arsenal have opened early discussions over a new contract for versatile defender Jurri\u00ebn Timber, with the club and player\u2019s representatives understood to be at an “early stage” of negotiations. BBC Sport report there is a “will from all parties” to extend the 24-year-old\u2019s deal beyond its current 2028 expiry.<\/p>\n
Timber joined from Ajax in July 2023 in a deal worth \u00a334.4 million ($45 million). His debut season was disrupted by a knee injury sustained against Nottingham Forest on the opening day of 2023\u201324. He did not return to Premier League action until May 2024, in the season finale against Everton, but has since made himself a regular in Mikel Arteta\u2019s defensive plans, establishing himself as first-choice right back ahead of Ben White.<\/p>\n
Across the 2024\u201325 campaign Timber registered 48 appearances in all competitions. This season he has made eight appearances so far, and has only been absent for the Carabao Cup third round victory over League One Port Vale.<\/p>\n
Arsenal are also optimistic about securing a new deal for Bukayo Saka. Saka missed time early in the season with a hamstring injury but returned to score his second goal of the campaign in midweek as Olympiacos were beaten 2-0 in the Champions League.<\/p>\n
Sporting director Andrea Berta oversaw a busy summer recruitment window that brought Viktor Gy\u00f6keres, Mart\u00edn Zubimendi, Eberechi Eze, Noni Madueke and Piero Hincapi\u00e9 to the squad. Meanwhile, contracts for Gabriel, Lewis-Skelly and Nwaneri were finalised during the transfer window.<\/p>\n
William Saliba committed his future earlier this week with a new five-year deal and publicly explained his reasons for turning down a possible free transfer to Real Madrid. “He won some titles with Liverpool. Me? I didn\u2019t win anything here except [the] Community Shield. I\u2019ve done nothing for this club to think about leaving. I want to stay here and win a lot of trophies. I love this club. I cannot leave without giving them something back. I won nothing, so my first choice was to stay here and win everything first,” Saliba said [www.si.com\/soccer\/william-saliba-reveals-he-turned-down-potential-real-madrid-move], speaking on Trent Alexander-Arnold\u2019s move and the allure of Madrid.<\/p>\n
“I knew that I wanted to stay here for more years, so I was not really focused on the other clubs. I am happy to be here.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Arsenal have opened early contract talks for Jurri\u00ebn Timber while managing squad changes. plus Saka.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3499,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,969],"tags":[826,1077,1100],"class_list":["post-3500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-premier-league","tag-bukayo-saka","tag-contract-renewal","tag-defence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3500","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3500"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3500\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}