Reports emerged on Thursday that Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain was demanding £100,0000 per week in a new deal with the club.

Now.

This is yet another story about a potential Arsenal contract that is coming from the website, Football Insider, which was founded by Wayne Veysey.

This story doesn’t come with his byline but I do wonder how one website has so many contacts at Arsenal to get information that the club usually keeps locked up tight.

The question also has to be asked how hard it would be for Arsenal to find out who is leaking these stories as this sort of information would be very restricted. I say ‘not very’.

How are they getting into the heads of so many players to find out what they want/demand/expect?

So with all that in mind, do you believe it?

Perhaps.

£100k isn’t a lot these days for a regular at a top European side and Arsenal can more than afford to meet these sorts of demands, but should they?

The Ox, in contrast to Theo Walcott, has been playing like rubbish (so has Theo, he just manages to have great games when his contract is under negotiation unlike the Ox) and it’s not just a recent thing.

With persistent and niggly injuries, the Ox has stalled since his arrival at the club in 2011. Under contract until 2018, the Ox has one goal and one assist this season in 22 appearances and just seven goals in 100 league appearances (14 in 147 in all competitions, or, to put it another way, 1 every 10.5 games).

“The England international wants a new contract worth more than £100,0000-a-week as he enters the prime years of his career,” Tony Hughes wrote.

“Arsenal are ready to hand the attacking midfielder a hefty rise on his current deal, which is worth £52,000-a-week,”

“But they will stop short of offering the player a deal that will double his wages and lift him on a par with the second bracket of earners at Emirates Stadium.”

Fair enough and nothing spectacular there in the final two paragraphs as well as nothing anyone couldn’t come up with. But the first bit?

How does he know?