Arsenal are ready to listen to offers for Aaron Ramsey in the January transfer window after performing a shock U-turn in their assessment of the club’s longest-serving player and withdrawing their contract offer.

Ramsey and Arsenal had been very positive about the prospect of finding an agreement throughout the summer but, with the club’s wage bill already running at record levels, and new head coach Unai Emery’s opinion sought, there is no current willingness to pay the sort of salary he would command.

Ramsey is currently on just over £100,000-a-week but could realistically expect around £200,000-a-week over the next four years given his own status and the salaries that are now being paid elsewhere at Arsenal.

It is believed Arsenal’s shock change of heart is explained by a combination of Emery’s assessment of Ramsey, his wider priorities for the squad and the realities of the club’s spending limitations.

Other leading clubs will be alerted by news of the breakdown in talks between Ramsey and Arsenal – Chelsea were previously interested – and a player who was named in the team of the tournament at Euro 2016 will also attract interest in Europe. Ramsey could sign a pre-contract agreement abroad from January but is much more likely to now wait until the end of the season and review all his options when he will be available on a free contract. It is conceivable that the current situation at Arsenal could also have changed by then.

Arsenal are not prepared to pay Ramsey the same wages as the likes of Mesut Ozil command credit: REUTERS

Aged 27, Ramsey has been at Arsenal for more than a decade and already holds a significant place in the club’s history for scoring the winning goal at Wembley in two FA Cup finals.

With Ramsey having been keen to stay and even regarded as a potential future captain, it is a decision which also suggests that Emery is forming definite opinions of his players and wants to prioritise other areas in his squad. New signings Matteo Guendouzi and Lucas Torreira have both emerged this season in central midfield while Granit Xhaka, Mohamed Elneny and Ainsley Maitland-Niles have all signed new contract extensions this year.

It is a reflection also on the club’s current financial position after the questionable awarding in January of three major contracts to sign Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and, crucially, to keep Mesut Ozil. Those deals are understood to have been driven by recruitment chief Sven Mislintat and chief executive Ivan Gazidis at a time when former manager Arsene Wenger's once all-powerful influence was waning.

As revealed by The Telegraph last month, Emery is facing significant restrictions with Arsenal’s wage bill during the January transfer window following a series of other deals that have been agreed over the past year.

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Although Jack Wilshere, Santi Cazorla and Lucas Perez all left Arsenal during the summer, the incoming arrivals of Bernd Leno, Sokratis, Guendouzi, Torreira and Stefan Lichtsteiner, as well as the extensions for Xhaka and Maitland-Niles, have further increased a wage bill that was already running at more than £200 million.

The situation will ease somewhat next summer when a new shirt sponsorship and kit deal cycle begins. The new main Emirates shirt deal, alongside a first separate sleeve sponsor, will alone bring in around £20 million more annually. Adidas will manufacture the kit from 2019 instead of Puma, with Arsenal also hoping for an increase on that deal approaching £20m a year.

Arsenal are still in talks with Danny Welbeck, whose contract also expires next summer and scored twice in Wednesday’s 3-1 over Brentford in the League Cup. Welbeck has Arsenal’s best goals-to-minutes ratio this season but has been peripheral so far in the Premier League team. "A few of the lads had a bit more of a pre-season than me which made it a bit difficult; I came back a bit later than the others,” he said. “I got 90 minutes last week, 90 minutes against Brentford and I'm just going to build on it from there and keep improving.”