Arsenal: Alex Iwobi agrees new contract to tie him at the club until 2021

Arsenal midfielder Alex Iwobi has agreed a new £30,000-a-week ($42,758) deal with Arsenal, which will keep him at the club until 2021. The midfielder came into the fray this season and has started against Barcelona at the Nou Camp and has played an integral part in their last two games, scoring a goal in each to secure a comfortable victory for the north London club.

The Mirror reports that the current deal is worth three times the one he signed in October 2015, which only tied him to the club until 2019. Arsene Wenger has been impressed by his recent performances and wanted to reward the 19-year-old with a new deal, which will come into effect from this season.

The Gunners have all but thrown away the title this season with a horrid run of form in the league since the turn of the year. They managed only two points from a run of Liverpool, Stoke City and Chelsea in January, while they repeated that performance with another point from Manchester United, Swansea City and Tottenham Hotspur, in a run stretching from February to March.

Their stumble has allowed the likes of Tottenham Hotspur and Leicester City to open up a gap at the top, with the Foxes currently eleven points ahead of the Gunners while Tottenham are leading their arch rivals by four points, albeit both having played a game more. Arsenal are desperate to win the remaining seven games left in the season, which they believe will take them closer to the title, but the situation seems bleak for the Gunners especially after Leicester secured their fourth consecutive 1-0 win over Southampton at the King Power Stadium last weekend.

Wenger has deployed Iwobi on the left while shifting Alexis Sanchez to the opposite flank, where he has been more productive. The Chilean scored and assisted a goal each against Watford and the Frenchman will be hoping that he is back at his best, to facilitate the Gunners march towards the title.

The Frenchman has also stumbled upon an unlikely pairing of Mohamed Elneny and Francis Coquelin, which has given some balance to the Gunners midfield. An injury to Santi Cazorla had forced Wenger to use Aaron Ramsey or Mathieu Flamini as part of the midfield pivot, but the current pairing are doing well to share the load and are ostensibly working given the results accrued over the last two games.