Happy in Italy and clearly wanted by AS Roma, Wojciech Szczesny could yet stay in the Italian capital but on a temporary basis.

There were reports last week that Szczesny said he was happy in Rome and would like to stay there permanently rather than returning to north London.

Wojciech had something to say about that.Never shy, our goalkeeper.

Well, since then reports have come out that Roma manager Luciano Spalletti is very happy to keep Szczesny and the Italians have made a request to extend the loan another 12 months.

Szczesny has been in superb form lately, particularly impressing against Napoli, and Spalletti would like to keep his options open despite Roma already completing a deal for Brazilian goalkeeper Alisson.

It’s a deal that would suit all parties: Arsenal still have Petr Čech, who will be number one next season barring some odd turn of events.

Szczesny is a talented goalkeeper and could definitely still replace Čech, who turns 34 later this month, a year or two down the line. He’s a better option than David Ospina and the Arsenal youth teams don’t have any strong goalkeeping candidates until Joao Virginia, who is still just 17.

As Szczesny himself has said he would be happy to go out on loan again, there’s no real reason we can’t see this happening at some point. The report from calciomercato.com says Roma expect a decision within 10 days, that part we aren’t so sure about.