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have all signed new five-year deals.
The improved contracts mean Wilshere’s pay goes from £50 000 to £80 000 a week, Oxlade-Chamberlain’s has trebled to £60 000 a week and Gibbs has had a rise of £10 000 a week to around £50 000 a week.
It is believed Ramsey now earns £60 000 a week while Jenkinson will earn about £35 000 a week, an increase of £15 000.
As Sportsmail exclusively revealed on Wednesday morning, five of their new-look British core have signed long-term contracts. And the north London club confirmed the news in the afternoon.
Manager Arsène Wenger said: “We are delighted that these five young players have all signed new long-term contracts. The plan is to build a team around a strong basis of young players, in order to get them to develop their talent at the Club.
“Jack is certainly the best known, the leader of this group — but the other four players are exceptional footballers, and we’re very happy that we could conclude their new deals at the same time.
Wenger continued: “Gibbs, Jenkinson, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Ramsey and Wilshere represent a core of the squad and it’s an extension for a long period for all of them.
“I’m a strong believer in stability and I believe when you have a core of British players, it’s always easier to keep them together and that’s what we’ll try to achieve going forward.”
Arsenal’s push to keep their best British talent indicates a deliberate shift in Wenger’s thinking.
After basing his sides around foreign players for years, the manager seems to have had a change of heart after the likes of Robin van Persie, Cesc Fabregas, Samir Nasri and Gael Clichy all left the Emirates Stadium.
Speaking after the thumping win at Reading, Wenger said: “We have a core of good young English players and I hope we will be able to build a team around them and that they can achieve something together.”
Another British player who continues to negotiate a new deal at the club is Theo Walcott. The striker rejected a deal worth £75 000 a week in August, and hopes to get closer to £100 000.
Walcott joined his teammates on Wednesday night at two Michelin star restaurant L’Atelier for the team’s Christmas party.
Fresh after thrashing Reading 5-2 on Monday evening, the players seemed in high spirits as they hit the town in central London.
Goalscorers Lukas Podolski, Walcott and hat-trick hero Santi Cazorla may have had greater cause to celebrate after helping the side bouncing back from a humiliating 1-0 defeat in the Capital One Cup last week to League Two outfit Bradford.
Meanwhile, Wenger insists he has always received total backing from the club’s board.
Wenger’s comments come after Arsenal were criticised by Uzbek billionaire Alisher Usmanov, the club’s second-largest shareholder, for withholding funds from the manager.
Usmanov — whose Red & White Holdings group are not represented on the board — also hit out at the Gunners board for their decision to sell Robin van Persie to Manchester United.
“This decision was a mistake,” Usmanov said. “If I am one of Wenger’s players I would want to stay for the finish, but he explained Robin wanted to go to win trophies.”
But Wenger is adamant he has supported the decisions from the boardroom as he believes they have put the club’s best interests first.
“I believe I have always had the support from the board, and am very grateful for that,” Wenger said.
“We have worked over the years in respecting in what we did, which is to always work within our financial resources.
“Therefore we made decisions which from outside looked not based on purely footballing reasons, but it was based as well on financial reasons.”
Usmanov (59) has an estimated fortune of some £18billion and maintains his long-term ambition is to take a controlling interest in Arsenal, where American Stan Kroenke is the majority shareholder.
Speaking to CNBC from Moscow, Usmanov said: “I want to take this opportunity to just reaffirm that in order to help the team, we would be ready to buy more shares, to buy control, to buy all shares.
“We are ready to do all that we can in order to help the company, in order to consider any form of co-operation or ownership with the team.
“If I have a big stake in Arsenal of course I have my opinion what we must do, for example in the commercial side there are many questions over the effectiveness of the commercial side of Arsenal today, but we will see, we will wait and maybe when I wake up some day I have this Arsenal club.
“I always tell Mr Wenger he is one of the best coaches and football managers in the world, but I openly admit he has many, many difficulties to contend with.”
And Raheem Sterling has pledged his long-term future to Liverpool after agreeing a new five-year contract.But a proposed swoop for Chelsea striker Daniel Sturridge is in the balance after Liverpool decided to get tough with agents.
The club has spent £32million on fees to players’ representatives in the past four years, and now talks have hit stalemate with several demands from Sturridge’s camp leaving Reds manager Brendan Rodgers refusing to commit to the transfer. — Mailonline.
Online Reporter