Arsène Wenger says there’s no truth to the rumours that Arsenal are preparing a bid for Lemar in January, but says he doesn’t know if the Gunners will make any moves in the winter window yet.

Wenger was speaking at his press conference ahead of Thursday’s match against Red Star Belgrade.

When asked about a rumoured Lemar bid, he responded: “No. The problem for me is to keep everybody together to the end of the season.”

However, he later added: “Do we go on the transfer market in January? I don’t know yet.”

From the sounds of things, the plan is very much to hold onto the likes of Alexis and Özil, rather than selling and replacing them.

A bid for Thomas Lemar may be contingent on the sale of Alexis to raise sufficient funds, so until plan A to hold onto the Chilean fails, I’d guess that a move for Lemar is unlikely.

Although Wenger is hinting that the Gunners might still dip into the transfer market in January, perhaps for someone else, history suggests that this is unlikely.

We wrote an article last month reviewing the club’s spend in the recent winter windows, and unfortunately it’s never very much.

So again, it only seems likely that Arsenal will spend a significant amount of money, or any money at all, if there’s somebody going in the other direction.