Arsene Wenger says he wants Jack Wilshere to stay at Arsenal, and the two parties are now just trying to find an agreement on financial terms.

Wenger explained the situation to the media in his pre-match press conference. He said: “We know what we want, we want him to stay, to extend. After that we have to find a satisfying financial agreement that is good for him. That is what we are trying to do.”

Earlier this week, Arsenal reportedly offered Wilshere a new deal, with lower wages but higher incentives. According to the figures in that report, the 26-year-old’s basic wage would drop from £110,000 to £90,000. Considering he spent much of his previous contract injured and on loan, you can understand the Gunners’ standpoint.

At this stage, we don’t know what the midfielder thinks of the new deal, but presumably he hasn’t signed it yet. Hopefully this should be a fairly straight-forward negotiation compared to some of Arsenal’s other recent dealings.

The player, the manager and the club all want the same thing, they just need to agree details. Wilshere’s now appeared in all of Arsenal’s Premier League games since December 2, and started seven of them.

He’s clearly in a good position when it comes to game time and having the belief of the boss. It’s much easier to deal with that than trying to convince a player to stay with financial incentives alone. We’ve seen that all too clearly with Alexis Sanchez.

With any luck, Wilshere’s negotiations will turn out better than the Chilean’s.