Transfer Centre

Tomas Rosicky: 'I thought about leaving Arsenal in January'

By Steven Toplis, ReporterPublished: 24 March 2015 10:19 AM

Tomas Rosicky admits that he considered leaving Arsenal during the January transfer window after a lack of first-team opportunities in the first half of the season.

Arsenal midfielder Tomas Rosicky has revealed that he considered leaving the club during the January transfer window after growing increasingly frustrated at his lack of game time in the first half of the season.

The Czech midfielder had to wait until Boxing Day for his first Premier League start, when he scored the winner in a 2-1 victory over Queens Park Rangers, but he has since featured in 12 of the last 15 matches and scored a further two goals.

Rosicky says that he is pleased to have re-established himself in the plans of Gunners manager Arsene Wenger.

"Since the start of the year things have improved, the team has started to play better football and what's more I'm playing! Compared to the first six months, it's much better. We'll see how it goes from here," he told isport.cz.

"We'd talked about [me leaving in January] in previous meetings back in September and October, but then the market closed and I couldn't do anything.

"When you don't play a single game in December and the market opens, [the prospect of leaving] is obviously on the agenda. Then you start to have second thoughts. It was an exception for me though, I really thought about it. Then Arsenal said stay and that was that."

Rosicky joined Arsenal in 2006.