Arsene Wenger says Raheem Sterling is a 'top player' after Liverpool winger said he was 'flattered' to be linked with Arsenal
The 20-year-old has turned down an offer of £100,000 a week at Liverpool
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Your support makes all the difference.Ahead of Arsenal's fixture against Liverpool this weekend, Gunners' manager Arsene Wenger has admitted that he is a fan of "top player" Raheem Sterling after the Reds' winger said yesterday he was "flattered" to be linked with Arsenal.
Wenger, however, said he did not want to interfere with Sterling's current contract stand-off with Liverpool at this stage in the season before the transfer period starts again in the summer.
According to Standard Sport, the Gunners are monitoring Sterling's contract situation as the 20-year-old stalls over a new deal with talks over his future to the set to resume this summer.
“Look, I do not want to speak about any move,” he told reporters today. “We are not in a transfer period, we are in front of a big game. I respect Liverpool and I do not want to go into any supposed move for any of their players.
“Raheem Sterling is a top player, everybody in the country knows that now. He is a very important player for Liverpool of course.
“I don’t want to interfere in that [Sterling’s contract talks], especially 48 hours before the game. That’s down to Liverpool, I don’t want to interfere in that. It’s not my problem.”
In an interview with BBC Sport yesterday, Sterling revealed he has turned down an offer of £100,000-a-week to extent his current contract at Anfield, which runs until the summer of 2017.
He said in the interview: "Yeah definitely it’s quite flattering [to be linked with Arsenal], but I try to just block everything out in my head and just keep playing football and doing well in my next game.
"My next game is against Arsenal [on Saturday] and I’ll be trying to my best against them, I won’t hide anything about that.
"I’m just happy to be playing football and want to do my best for Liverpool."
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