Atletico Madrid are preparing to make an lucrative offer for Mesut Özil, according to reports.

The Mirror claim that the Spanish club are willing to offer £200,000-a-week, which is apparently well below what Özil actually wants.

The report states Ozil’s wage demands from Arsenal are £330,000, but it’s hard to take that seriously considering the figure changes every time you read about it.

Özil’s contract expires at the end of the season, meaning Atletico could negotiate a pre-contract agreement in January. So if Arsenal want to hold onto the German, they’re running out of time to agree terms.

Jack Wilshere’s future is set to be decided in December, according to Arsène Wenger, so perhaps the same is true of the German.

However, we haven’t had any confirmation of when negotiations are taking place in Özil’s case, I’d guess because Wenger doesn’t want to create panic if there’s no new contract announcement afterwards.

In my opinion, it’ll be a lot harder to agree a deal now than it would’ve been this summer. Now, you have to convince Ozil to sign up with a team struggling to make a top-four challenge and being nowhere near the Premier League title.

The 29-year-old has made no secret that he wants to play in the Champions League and right now it looks like Arsenal can’t offer him it. The Gunners will need to change that soon, or there will be no new deal and the likes of Atletico will pounce.