Pires shuns future plans before Barca game


By Richard Clarke

Robert Pires will not let talk about his future interfere with preparations for the Champions League Final.

It is possible that Wednesday’s clash with Barcelona could be the 32-year-old’s last game in a six-year spell with Arsenal. He is out of contract in the summer and has been talking to other clubs for sometime, including vanquished Semi-Finalists Villarreal. For his part Arsène Wenger is hopeful Pires will stay.

"The situation is quite simple at the moment," said the French midfielder.

"We’ve got the Final coming up and we're going to focus on that and then afterwards I'll decide whether I’m going to stay or leave."

"At the moment I honestly don't know what I'm going to do. I can say that Arsenal has been a fantastic Club for me at every level and in every sense but I need to think as to whether I’m going to stay here or try going to another country."

"But I think at the moment we need to really concentrate on the Final and we need to be allowed to do that because we’re going to have to do absolutely everything we can to win the Final. My personal situation will come afterwards."

Pires feels Arsenal are coming good at the right time and, although he accepts few people thought they could reach the Paris showpiece, Wenger's men could just nick it.

"We’ve been on a very good run in both the League and the Champions League," said the former Marseille midfielder. "I think we’ve showed that no matter what happens we can recover from it.

"Obviously we've finished fourth in the Premiership. That was our objective because we've got into the Champions League for next year and I think we've surprised a lot of people and a lot of teams - Real Madrid, Juventus and Villarreal — in the competition this year.

"I don't think anyone expected us to make it to the Final but it often happens that a dark horse gets there. I think that if we carry on playing as well as we've been playing recently then we've got a really good chance."

(Arsenal.com)

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Wayne Rooney Profile

Cristiano Ronaldo Profile

Lionel Messi Profile