Arsene Wenger met with the press on Friday morning and, as usual, they had to ask about the situation with the contracts of a few players.

A regular question before every game which has already shown signs of exasperating Wenger, I’m not entirely sure what the reporter thinks might have changed in the four days since Boxing Day, but I guess we have to give them points for persistence.

The first question was about the Ox and the reported interest of Liverpool which, the questioner acknowledged, was non-existent… begging the question why his topic was even being raised in the first place other than to try and keep feeding the rumour.

Q Arsene, the speculation linking Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain to Liverpool, has been described as ‘nonsense’ by Jurgen Klopp. It gives me the chance to ask you the weekly question about Chamberlain, Sanchez and Ozil and is there any latest you can give us?

AW No. No. We have all to face a lot of wrong informations, you like me, and we have to live with that. We cannot influence that.

It’s also worth pointing out that the ‘weekly question’ has never included the Ox. The media generally only seem to care about Ozil and Sanchez. The reporter might have been better off just saying ‘I read some nonsense in the media and gives me the chance to ask you an unrelated question so we can print more nonsense in the media.’