Arsenal may have only announced Per Mertesacker’s contract renewal this week but they actually registered the new deal at the end of December.

The FA do a monthly bulletin with details of players registered and they have Mertesacker listed as being registered on 29 December, 2016.

Quite why Arsenal kept the deal quiet for three weeks is anyone’s guess and it puts question marks over the Evening Standard’s sources in a piece which claimed a deal wasn’t done only a few days before it was announced.

Arsenal registered Laurent Koscielny’s new contract on 16 December (announced 12 Jan), while Santi Cazorla has also signed a new deal that has not yet been announced.