Arsenal have reportedly activated the option in William Saliba’s contract to extend it to 2024, as talks continue over a new long-term deal.

David Ornstein reports for The Athletic that Arsenal have activated an option to extend William Saliba’s contract to June 2024.

Saliba’s previous terms were set to expire in 2023, and the deadline to activate the option was December 31st, so Arsenal took it up in recent days.

In many ways, this is neither good news nor bad news for Saliba’s long-term future. It means Arsenal still haven’t convinced the centre-back to agree to a fresh contract, but it also means they won’t be losing him for free this summer.

Talks over a new deal are ongoing, and it doesn’t sound like the two parties are close to a resolution yet. But there’s still a year and a half to go, and everything seems to be going well on the pitch at the moment.

Saliba is getting plenty of minutes with Arsenal, and he’s helped the team up to the top of the Premier League going into the new year, regardless of the result against Brighton on Saturday.

It’s hard to see what more the Gunners could be doing to convince Saliba to stay on the footballing front, so the only remaining question is the finances.

The Athletic recently reported that one of the reasons that Saliba’s contract remains unsigned is that Arsenal are not offering a wage that his representatives feel is fair considering the length of time they want him to time him down for.

The longer the contract, the more Saliba’s camp will want, as they’ll feel that they could have renegotiated a higher wage in a couple of seasons if he’d been on a shorter deal.

The positive angle on that is it means Arsenal are trying to get Saliba tied down for as long as possible. The hope is that eventually they’ll reach a financial compromise and the player can prepare for an extended stay in north London.