In a strange twist of events today, Arsenal Wenger has said he thinks perennial target-misser Nicklas Bendtner has a future at Arsenal, once his loan at Juventus finishes.

This seems rather at odds with his previous statements that Bendtner “will be off elsewhere soon” with a rather dismissive tone.

Indeed, Bendtner has been top of the “deadwood” list for some time, and Arsenal have spent the last two summers trying to offload him, only for his own personal demands to knock back any potential moves.

Does he mean it?

As was mentioned, it seems strange that Wenger would suddenly be as glowing in his praise of Bendtner as he was before, after using him on the right wing for most of his Arsenal career, a position it can be safely said he’s not the most gifted in.

For all his ego and mistakes though, Bendtner is a decent centre-forward, having scored hat-tricks for Arsenal twice, including one against Porto in the Champions League, when started in his proper position.

Despite this, this smacks of racking the price up for a proper move next summer. If Bendtner impresses at Juventus, actual big clubs in Europe will come knocking (not the ones he’s claimed were interested before), and we may actually see him finally offloaded.

Indeed, the fact that Juventus have an option to buy Bendtner suggests that Wenger’s words today were little more than his traditional loyalty to players and an attempt to ramp up his price.

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