Jack Wilshere will leave Arsenal in the summer, and is likely to remain in the Premier League, according to a report from Italy.

Tuesday’s edition of La Gazzetta dello Sport [hardcopy] claims that the midfielder will finally move on from North London this year.

Despite the links to multiple Serie A clubs, the Italian outlet believes Wilshere will stay in his home country, which makes sense, given his family live here and plenty of Premier League clubs have shown an interest.

They write: “Wilshere will leave Arsenal and has been linked to Milan and Sampdoria, but should continue in the Premier League.”

The 25-year-old’s contract situation certainly seems to be dragging on at the moment. His current deal expires at the end of the season, and Wilshere told the media he’d spoken to Arsene Wenger about an extension back in December.

In January, Arsenal reportedly finally made him an offer. They planned to reduce the England international’s basic wage, but give him a number of performance related add-ons.

Clearly Wilshere wasn’t completely happy with the offer, because over a month later he still hasn’t signed on.

Near the start of February, rumours in the media suggested Wilshere was about to finalise terms. Again, as that hasn’t happened yet, there’s no way of knowing how true those claims were.

Perhaps it’s just a matter of signing and announcing, or maybe he really is preparing to leave.

According to reports, Arsenal have spent a bit of time scouting Oguzhan Özyakup recently, and even reportedly made an offer. Maybe the two are unrelated, but it does suggest the club are looking at possible replacements.

In his interviews, Wilshere has always given me the impression that he wants to stay. That should be a big factor, as we heard Mesut Özil say the same thing before his deal, but never got similarly committal statements from Alexis Sanchez.

Still, we’ll have to wait and see what happens over the coming weeks or months but the longer it drags on, the more concerning it gets.