Mikel Arteta believes Alexandre Lacazette is ‘happy’ at Arsenal and wants to remain at the club.

There has been much speculation about Alexandre Lacazette this summer with many people accepting that his time at the club was up. Whether you believed he wasn’t happy with Arteta, Arteta wasn’t happy with him or the club saw a profit to be made, there was little debate around the subject. He was off.

Last month I wrote that Lacazette seemed to be one of four players Arteta actually wanted to keep despite all the noise around them. Lacazette, for his part, also sounded like a player who wanted to stay at the club.

Speaking to the media before Arsenal’s Premier League opener against Fulham this weekend, Arteta was asked about Lacazette’s future.

He couldn’t really have been much clearer.

“He is really happy here, he wants to keep improving and contributing to the team,” Arteta said. “I know how good he is, the impact he is having. He knows about the competition he has with the front players, and again he needs to demand of himself to be the best striker at this football club, the same as the rest.

“He was very happy to hear that and the way he has been training and conducting himself has been excellent.

“Yes [I think he wants to stay here], I think he is very happy here. That is my feeling and what I got from that message.”