Arsene Wenger says that the club are in talks with Bacary Sagna and that he’s hopeful the right back will sign a new cntract and stay at the club.

The French international has around 18 months left on his current deal, meaning he could leave on a free in the summer of 2014, or provide excellent value to someone else at the end of this current season.

Although Carl Jenkinson has made excellent progress, Sagna has been one of the club’s most consistent performers and Wenger says that talks are ongoing.

“We are in talks at the moment,” he said. “We are hopeful. He had some big injury issues but, with him and Carl Jenkinson, you need two players and we want to keep them.”

It does sound promising but not convincingly so and with real interest in Sagna from Inter Milan Arseblog News is not holding its breath just yet.

Of course the new deal with Emirates may mean Sagna could see out his contract and leave on a Bosman at the Logan’s Runtacular age of 31, with Wenger admitting that the increased sponsorship money is as much about being able to keep existing players as it is about signing new ones.

This one may have some way to run just yet.