Granit Xhaka signed a six-year deal with Arsenal on Friday, according to reports in his home country, where they’re calling the extension ‘unprecedented’.

Arsenal officially announced the new contract on Twitter, with a message from the player himself. As so often with the club’s top players though, they didn’t reveal the exact length of the extension, just calling it a “new long-term contract”.

Swiss outlets are claiming the new deal lasts until 2024, which would make it a six-year contract. 20min write that “with the new six-year deal Xhaka rises into a category unprecedented by Swiss standards. A possible transfer sum would probably move into the three-digit million range.”

The website then quotes Xhaka telling local media: “That (the contract) gives me a lot of planning security. London will remain my centre of life for years.”

It’s worth noting that not all media outlets are reporting the same thing. James Benge of the Evening Standard claims the contract only lasts until the end of the 2022/23 season, five years. Either way, it’s a very long time until it ends, and a big show of faith in the player from Unai Emery.

That’s important, because some fans on social media were starting to believe that Lucas Torreira might be coming to the club to replace Xhaka, rather than to play alongside him. It seems much more likely now that the manager intends to use the pair together, hopefully with Aaron Ramsey.

We’ll have to wait and see whether those two sign their contracts with the Gunners as well, in the coming weeks.