Alex Iwobi is reportedly set to receive his second pay rise in under a year with Arsenal planning to offer the Nigerian another new contract following his rise to prominence.
The 20-year-old has cemented himself a vital component in Arsene Wenger’s side as they chase silverware on all fronts in what could possibly be the Frenchman’s final season in north London with his own contract set to elapse next summer.
Iwobi has made five appearances for the Gunners this term and is expected to double his salary at the Emirates having broken into the first-team under Wenger last season.
According to the Daily Mail, the Nigeria international is likely to be offered up to £50,000-a-week in a standard weekly wage while it is almost inevitable that a series of lucrative incentives will be added for winning either the Premier League or the Champions League.
Wenger said, “Alex has a discreet way of assessing his place in the team. He doesn’t talk a lot and he’s not what you’d call a flashy player. He’s a player who connects the team, and that’s why I think he’s integrated so quickly – because our game is based on those combinations.
“At the start nobody talked too much about him, because he does his job very well. But now people realise more and more that he can play at a high pace, that he has real quality, he works for the team, and when it comes to distributing the ball, he does that very intelligently.
“When the ball gets to him, you always feel the game can become quicker now. He’s developed that in the last 18 months. When I saw him in the youth team, he was more of a dribbler, an individual player.
“He’s slowly discovered from training with the first team that he needed to find a mixture between the individual and the collective game. That mixture is right now.”