Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger has claimed he is confident that Theo Walcott will sign a new deal at the club and repay the faith that has been shown in him. Speaking at a press conference Wenger said that the he felt the England international would not be leaving in January.

"My gut feeling is that he belongs to this club and that I hope he will do it and sign for us, I always am convinced he will stay."

Despite being only 23 year old Walcott has been at the club for seven years, after Asrenal signed him from Southampton in 2005. This week five of his teammates, Jack Wilshere, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Kieran Gibbs, Aaron Ramsey and Carl Jenkinson, all penned long-term deals the club, and Wenger believes that with his maturing squad the future looked bright.

"Well yes of course, because technical stability's important and the game we want to play demands a little bit of blind understanding and therefore it is important that we keep the same players together. And we might now have a better chance of keeping the young players together than we had before and that's why it's good news for the club. "

After seeing the likes of Cesc Fabregas, Alex Song and Robin Van Persie leave in recent seasons, Arsenal fans have lambasted this board for not investing in creating a title-winning team. Wenger insists that money is at his disposal in January but he will not rush into any new signings.

"Let's see how far this team can go , if we can add one or two exceptional players we will do it , what we do not want to do is to add just players because people put us under pressure to buy players and that's where we have to be strong enough to find the player who will give us something special we will do it, but that in January will not be easy. "

Arsenal's 5-2 win at Reading on Monday propelled them to 5<sup>th in the table, and they'll be hoping to break into the top four for Christmas by beating Wigan on Saturday.

Written and presented by Alfred Joyner