Arsenal chief executive Ivan Gazidis has indicated the club is ready to offer manager Arsene Wenger a new contract.

Arsene Wenger

Wenger has presided over a seven-year trophy drought at the Gunners, during which time he has lost the services of a number of his star players. But Gazidis has expressed his confidence in the direction the club is taking under the 62-year-old Frenchman, and is keen to continue with his manager who is currently contracted until 2014.

“It’s not a sense of sentimentalism, not a reward for our services, it’s a belief that we have an incredible manager who loves this club and is the best man to lead us forward,” Gazidis told The Daily Mirror.

“We’re really confident about the direction that the club is heading. We’re coming through strongly and we believe we’re really well placed.

“We hope and believe that Arsene will be a part of that as we move forward.

“He is written into our DNA.

“At the same time, as a club, we have to make sure that all of the things that Arsene has brought to the club are enshrined in our DNA to make sure that when the day comes when Arsene decides it’s time to hang up his boots – I don’t know what the expression is as a manager – that we are in a position to take his ideas and work forward.

“The values that Arsene has brought to the club together with the values the club had before Arsene are what will inform us – and I don’t want to give any indication that this is happening – and give us the framework as to who might take over from him in the longer term.”

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