The day after Arsene Wenger praised Wolfsburg forward, Julian Draxler, Kicker is reporting that the player wants to leave immediately.

I remember back in the day when Wenger, or more so the media, was obsessed with bringing the Schalke man to north London. He was the Next Big Thing and it was no secret that the boss admired him. However, a tendon injury in 2014 kept him sidelined for the best part of five months and, despite the early promise he showed, his progress stalled.

Draxler joined Wolfsburg in 2015, which the 22-year-old is now reportedly describing as a ‘mistake’. The forward scored five goals in 21 appearances for them in the Bundesliga and assisted six – far from shabby for a young player returning from a major injury. However, according to Kicker, he wants out. This news comes the day after Arsene Wenger told Chinese TV that he’s interested to see ‘what Draxler is doing’.

“At the moment I think most of the young talented players are in France,” Wenger said.

“We speak about (Anthony) Martial, we speak about (Kingsley) Coman, who are still about 20. And I’ve seen a very interesting young talent from Turkey – (Emre) Mor.

“You have as well some other players like (Leroy) Sane in Germany. It will be very interesting as well to follow what Draxler is doing, he’s still a very young player.”

Since this report from Kicker, Wolfsburg boss, Klaus Allofs, has insisted to Bild that neither Julian Draxler (or Andre Schurrle) will be leaving.

“We always say that we listen to everything. That expressively does not apply for Andre and Julian,” Allofs said.

“We don’t want to sell them, we want to return to the Champions League with them.”

These things can never be simple, can they?