For much of the summer, Bayern Munich have looked the most likely destination for Alexis Sanchez should the Chile international refuse to sign a new deal at the Emirates.
While Arsene Wenger has made clear he’d be happy to keep the attacker for the final year of his contract there have also been suggestions that Arsenal could cash in on the 28-year-old should a suitable replacement be found.
Already this summer the Gunners have bid for Lyon’s Alexandre Lacazette and Monaco’s Kylian Mbappe, while the likes of Thomas Lemar and Riyad Mahrez have also been targeted. Alas, no progress has been made.
In the meantime, Bayern, who have been tipped to make an offer for Sanchez in the region of £50 million, have been busy in the transfer market snapping up young talents with a view to dominating the Bundesliga in the long-term. So far they’ve sealed the permanent signings of 21-year-olds Kingsley Coman (£17.85m), Serge Gnabry (£6.8m) and Niklas Sule (£17m) and splashed out £35.2 million on 22-year-old Corentin Tolisso.
It’s a policy that has been defended by Bayern president Uli Hoeness who has hinted that big money signings for players nearing 30-years-old are not on their agenda. It sounds to us like they’ve no intention of touching Alexis.
“Everyone is talking about building a new team and how Bayern Munich’s future must be shaped,” Hoeness told Kicker [translated by The Independent].
“And then Bayern does exactly that – signs young players between 20 and 22 – and is criticised once again.
“But you can’t build a new team with €100m transfers for 29 and 30-year-olds. That isn’t a policy.
“Either we go down this road with all these young players, all getting a chance to play, or we don’t go down this road.”
So what does that mean for Alexis? A move to China seems improbable, PSG have turned their attention to Kylian Mbappe and Chelsea seem set on re-signing Romelu Lukaku. It leaves Manchester City as the only bona fide suitor at the moment.
That’s both worrying, because obviously they are loaded and can afford to pay both big wages and a huge transfer fee, and a relief because you can’t for one moment believe the Arsenal board will sanction a deal with another Premier League club. (LOL.)
Perhaps he might like to put pen-to-paper on a new deal at the Emirates? It would certainly be pleasant to draw a line under a saga that has been rumbling far too long.
__
Extra reading…check out today’s post by Blogs focusing on why Sanchez should be kept at all costs.
“you can’t for one moment believe the Arsenal board will sanction a deal with another Premier League club”.. oh dear
Exactly. I lost all confidence in them after the Van Persie deal.
I mean I guess, but how much has the Board changed since then? Does anyone know?
It is not that the Board has changed, but that the financial situation has changed. Arsenal have not lost any player who played regularly in the first team who we wanted to keep since Sagna. Remember Arsene would not even let Debuchy–who never played–go to Man United. So, I genuinely am confident (barring something ridiculous, like a 100 mil offer) that we will not let Alexis go to Man City.
If a 100m offer came along, should we cash in? Is there a price where we would?
I he had 4 years on his contract then he’s priceless. With only 1 year on his contract it would be madness to turn down 100 million. It seems incredibly unlikely that city will pay that much.
This doesn’t seem dissimilar to the RVP debacle in that the player was probably anticipating a plethora of offers from a range of national and international teams and could effectively cherry pick his destination. I’m amazed that the likes of Milan, Juve, Munich, PSG, Athletico… don’t want a piece. We all know just how good he is. Now let’s see if we are a team with a new direction to that of two or three seasons ago. There’s been a hell of a lot of talk but this is truly the test as to where the ambition of this club… Read more »
On closer inspection, it is maybe not that surprising. Juve: splashed a lot of cash on Higuain just last year and are pretty deep in the forward positions (Higuain as mentioned, Dybala, Mandzukic, Cuadrado, etc.). Juve has also released Dani Alves, and are likely losing Alex Sandro which leaves a 33 year old Lichtsteiner as their main man at right wing back, so their focus will likely be on bringing in some new wing backs rather than a player like Alexis. Atletico: transfer ban Bayern Munich: see above, they seem to be focusing on youth, and they might not think… Read more »
Those clubs aren’t interested because he’s so expensive despite having only 1 year on his contract. If he stays but doesn’t sign a new contract then every big club in Europe will make him an offer next January.
I have wanted Tolisso at Arsenal for years now so I’m genuinely fucking livid about Bayern getting him.
I. Hate. Bayern.
“for years”? How many? He is 22 and only good now.
Let him go. The feeling when we finnish above them, and beat them in our encounters next season will only be more rewarding. As well as us lifting the trophy and Man city finish outside Champions league.
One can only hope for that outcome if he leaves.. Atleast he made himself a couple of extra pesos.
“Scandinavian” and “finnish” – coincidence?
Finland isn’t part of Scandinavia.
I’d like what you’re smoking.
Obviously we’d all love to keep Alexis, he’s in a different class to the rest of our squad and he would be a massive miss. And if City signed him then they’d be getting a real boost. But I think people are being unrealistic and not living in the real world if they really expect the club to turn down an offer of £40-50m for him when 9-10 months later he can walk for nothing. My heart would love us to just keep him but my head knows that no sensible business would make such a decision. Faced with making… Read more »
What if the old car is a Ferrari and you could only replace it with a vauxhall?
If you’re implying that Arsenal, a club apparently engaging in offers of over £100m for Mbappe and with that sort of money in the bank, can’t afford to buy somebody of Alexis’ level then I think you’re wrong. We couled certainly buy another Ferrari. And another £40-50m will only help that, whereas not having that money would make it harder. Which is my point – it just doesn’t make sense not to cash in if he makes it clear that he won’t sign a new deal.
£50M for a single season is a lot of money. I don’t think our board will turn that down if such an offer comes in. Then again, I don’t think it will, as that cost-per-season is just too high. He’d be worth £150M then for the three seasons we’ve had him. Not even Alexis is worth that kind of money. In fact, there’s not a single player on the planet who’s worth a transfer fee of £50M per season.
50 million is also the difference between making the champions league and finishing in the Europa league. it’s not as clear.
Whoof Whoof
CL isn’t worth what it used to be. Manchester United got more for winning the EL this year than getting knocked out of the CL the year before. The difference between the EL and CL is mainly prestige at this point, and even that is of questionable worth given how easily clubs like Chelsea and Manchester United attract players anyway as long as the salaries are high enough. For us, given that we always get knocked out in the same round of the CL every year, we’re likely to earn as much in the EL this year as we have… Read more »
We did sold the little boy inside of RVP to manure. I don’t see why we wouldn’t sell to city this year. I would love to see Alexis at the Emirates next season, but Realistically speaking, the board will definitely accept £50mn if there is such a bid.
Let’s see what happens but RVP was the last of the real sales where we didn’t have the finances. At this point given how many were against Wenger getting a new contract (while it wasn’t everyone it was certainly more than a small minority) I don’t see Wenger sanctioning a sale to a rival just given how toxic it would turn the environment.
When has Wenger cared about what the fan’s think?
Finger on the pulse as ever mr trump
City have a bunch of players (Jesus, Aguero, Silva, Sane, De Bruyne, Sterling, Bernardo Silva) who play in attacking areas. To accommodate Sanchez they’ll need to move someone. If they’re in for Alexis we can do a player plus cash deal.
I don’t really see a way that this would work out in our favour, because a player plus cash deal for Alexis would almost certainly leave us with a player of lower calibre compared to Alexis and too little cash to rectify that situation. I don’t see City parting with De Bruyne or Bernardo Silva (just acquired), and even if Aguero decides he wants out of Manchester, I doubt that it would be to join the Arsenal. That leaves Silva (wrong side of 30 and while a tremendous playmaker, he wouldn’t exactly fill the 30 goal hole that Alexis’ departure… Read more »
Or they could be looking at getting 2 players for every position. 2 each at striker, left wing, right wing and attacking midfield is 8 players, your list has 7 names
You would like to think that re signing the players we want to keep would be a priority. Almost july and nothing yet is worrying
Personally i think sanchez will join city. The arsenal board are nothing if not cynical.
The fact that some fans may be placated by the signing of another talented forward would be missing the point. We need top players in adddition to and to complement sanchez not to replace him.
Its going to be a long 2 years
Wenger and board cannot force greedy Sanchez to sign. Their job is to get good replacement.
What, you mean those players that are away on international duty or on holiday?
I agree we should’ve locked down contracts MUCH sooner, but in terms of this summer we were never going to make much progress when the players are away.
yeah the ones that have said they will leave it to the agents to sort out.
Sanchez is greedy. Do not blame Arsene and board. Please spare me the “He wants to play CL argument”.
I guess he has every right to be “greedy”. This will be his last major contract. I would think that you would do the same when playing football for a team you haven’t supported in childhood.
Well, I hope he stays.
Sanchez is a professional footballer.
Sanchez is a professional from Tocopilla in Chile. He has no duty or obligation to love Arsenal or London.
You consider him as a mercenary then.
Call it what you want but would you do exactly the same job for less money if someone at a similar employer is offering you much more? Most people wouldn’t and Alexis is no different.
Even club legend/record goalscorer/statue outside the Emirates Thierry Henry left us to fulfill a Champions League dream. Let’s remember that a footballer’s career is short and *if* they reach the pinnacle of the game that period is even shorter.
We have to get away from this mentality where we charge the highest prices for tickets and merchandise to fund a team of world-class players then act surprised that some of those players want to win trophies. Attacking a player’s character is easy. Building a title-winning team is hard. We should be focused on only one of those things.
Did Henry only play for Arsenal for three years ? Henry had around him players like Almunia, Djourou, Senderos, Clichy (who was pretty bad player at the time), very young Walcott, Eboue etc… Sanchez has Cech, Koscielny, Ozil, Giroud, Welbeck, Ox, Xhaka, Ramsey, Walcott… Also, Henry’s teammates who won things with him (Pires, Dennis, Lauren, Campbell, Lehman, Cashley, Freddie) all had left. It wasn’t the same situation at all. Henry was so loyal that Real, Milan clubs, Bayen never bothered to try to get him. Barcelona had to wait until he started getting old.
Alexis is more or less the same age as Thierry was when he signed for Barcelona. And one of the main reasons Henry finally left was that David Dein had already qone and Wenger was coming to the end of his own contract. Sound familiar? It’s simply wrong to think the club leadership have nothing to do with this situation. in recent years Messi and Ronaldo have flirted with other clubs before signing mega new contracts. Is Lacazette greedy for wanting to come to Arsenal? Was Xhaka greedy for leaving Mönchengladbach? Even “loyal one-club” man Steven Gerrard had to be… Read more »
No, he saw that with Wenger at the helm this club will not win anything, he obviously lost faith in him, his approach, tactics, gameplan, preferred players/favouritism etc.. And he wants to leave. I am an arsenal fan, but looking at the shambles we have been for many seasons now, I feel embarassed for the clubs management and moslty for Arsene. So I don’t blame Alexis for wanting to leave, he always gave his all and produced what was expected. That the rest (well, most of) of the players and the manager are not on the level is not his… Read more »
Hi guys,
I’m curious to know why so many downvotes? Is it just because we are now in the preseason phase, and you all want to believe that we will sign Mbappe or whoever and really think that Alexis is gonna stay? Am I seen as a negative guy with these thoughts, when we can only hope for the turnaround which is again possible as we are in that time of the year where we all start from zero?
Bayern have done fantastic work in the past 10 years. They’ve built a strong relationship with their fan base (like most clubs in the bundesliga) and in their transfers. I envy them to be honest.
They can’t be in that great a shape if they had to resort to stealing all our bog roll.
Perhaps they heard about the poo-ometer
Someone described the Bundesliga as a “pyramid scheme” for Bayern Munich. They treat the other clubs in that league like their janitors.
Of there is one club we should model on it should Bayern. Financialy arsenal is very similar yo Bayern but you wouldn’t know that with Bayerns performance in champions league. Its amazing how Arsenal and Bayern have such contrasting outings in champions league despite being in almost equal budget. Their efficient transfer dealings has a big effect on it. Case in point how they acquired Renato Sanchez , so many clubs were behind him . but Bayern moved in quickly and completed the deal even before the euro 2016 which was a breakout tournament for him and every club was… Read more »
Although there may be much to admire in the way Bayern run their club, it is difficult to compare their situation with ours. They have been, by a very long way, the dominant financial power in their league; it is possible that this position may be challenged by the Red Bull conglomerate, but that remains to be seen. For years, they could buy any Bundesliga player they wanted from any other team, even their closest rival, Dortmund. We cannot raid our direct rivals like Man United, Chelsea, and City, all with far greater resources, and must complete with them for… Read more »
They have the biggest budget in their league. They have no local competition and better weather.
They spent 45 million on renato sanches and he was a bit part player for them. Can you imagine if we broke our transfer record for a player not as good as the ones we have?
Yeah, it’s sweltering in Munich. The local cuisine probably draws people as well (I especially love the boiled pig’s foot and manky sauerkraut).
Winning everything every year sure does make people happy
If we keep Alexis one more year I can’t see Man City needing him at all next season. They have Gabriel Jesus, De Bruyne, Bernardo Silva, Sané, Sterling (not as good as the others but as a 5th choice pretty decent) for their front 3 and I can’t see where a man who turns 30 that year can have his wages justified replacing them, regardless of how good he is
Alexis would be my first pick out of all of them.
Right now, sure, but Spanish Gooner is talking about the future here, and four of those (Gabriel Jesus, De Bruyne, Silva and Sané) are all young and extremely exciting. There’s a good chance at least 2-3 of those will be on par with Sanchez in a season or two.
Silva is 31 … Sane is young but not extremely exciting while De Bruyne is young and dull. That leaves Jesus and he’s injury prone. Man City are fucked.
I can’t believe this being voted down. Of course Alexis is better than all of those city players.
And you forgot Arguero.
I’d rather have Alexis than aguero
If they sell to citeh and we don’t get aguero in return I’m gonna……
Well I’ll probably just sulk for a few minutes and then go about my day as usual. Ffs! Just sign da ting!
I’ve read a lot of criticism of the Arsenal board over the contracts of Ozil, Ox and Sanchez. The fans – and the press- all ask the question “how could Arsenal let him get down to the last season of his contract?”. It’s actually pretty simple. You can’t make someone sign a contract if he doesn’t want to. The contract he is being offered has been on the table for the guts of a year. It is a phenomenal contract -smashing our salary record. But you can’t make him sign it. And I think the biggest issue for him is… Read more »
Al – most clubs don’t let the contract get inside 2 years b/c at that point the value drops dramatically. Wenger did the same with Walcott a few years ago and ended up paying him a lot in wages. The other issue was Wenger himself refusing to let anyone know what he was going to do the entire year – I can’t imagine trying to convince top players to stay is particularly easy when the answer to who the manager will be is ask me again in 6 months
It also would be a lot more understandable if it were simply Sanchez refusing to sign rather than Wenger effectively tying 1/3 of the first team club’s contracts to his.
I think that’s a nonsense and simply another lazy stick to beat Wenger with. At no other club do players ‘attach’ themselves to a manager as you’re suggesting they do at Arsenal. It didn’t even happen at Man Utd in Ferguson’s final years and that was a much more successful manager, so why do you think it happens at Arsenal? Professional footballers are used to playing for many different managers and managers get sacked all of the time, they all know this and Alexis is no different. But if (and it’s a very big ‘if’) it really is the case… Read more »
No but at most clubs 1/3 of players contracts don’t expire the same time as the managers and all at once
Yes and his useless staff of old ‘yes men’, they all got new contracts. When a new manager finally comes in he will have to have a major overhaul of the backroom staff.
So what? I’m not saying that it’s good that we’re in the situation we are with so many player’s contracts but the fact that Wenger was out of contract isn’t pertinent to that in my opinion. I don’t agree that any players were genuinely holding off to know whether Wenger was staying or not.
Besides, weren’t many fans wanting Wenger to leave? Surely it would make no sense to those fans to award Wenger a new contract much earlier simply to make it easier to extend the deals of some players?
Would you trade Sanchez for James Rodriguez?
Would love the club to come out and say that we are NOT selling any of our players to strengthen our direct rivals, e.g. Alexis to City, Ox to Liverpool.
It would be nice but it’s unrealistic. We’re a business not a Hollywood RomCom.
City are not our direct rival.
Liverpool, Manchester Utd & Everton are our direct rivals.
Disagree mate.
Top 6 PL teams are direct rivals.
Chelsea, spuds + city are not in a league of their own.
For me, we need to keep him for his final year, bring in Lemur & Lacazette as well as keeping Ozil, Giroud & the Ox. Go all in for this next season. We have Chelsea’s number & without Costa they ‘might’ be weaker, I’d expect Spurs to stall a bit at Wembley & with Champions League football, City have so many question marks over them that they are hard to call, Liverpool are shit & Utd are surely too negative to sustain a challenge for the league. We should be looking to develop the youngsters in the squad in the… Read more »
We’ve already had offers rejected on Lemur & Lacazette. As usual other clubs have paid more for similar players. City got De Silva straight away and Chelski are getting Bakayoko. A. Madrid bid more also for Lacazette, as usual we’ll end up shopping in the pound shop.
Personally..I would love to swap Sanchez with Augero.. if Sanchez really wants to move..but I think even if Manchester City accepted to it(I doubt they will)..I don’t think Augero would want to move.. But just saying that would be the only deal we should be ready to do with Man city.. All said.. I really don’t understand why Sanchez is desperate to move to Man $iteh.. They didn’t win the league last season..infact they were never even close.. We infact beat them in the FA cup semis..and won more trophies then they did last season.. We are ready ready to… Read more »
And why on earth are Arsenal not even linked with Aubameyang?? Flusters me..
I guess Wenger is the only guy who could talk him out of that suicidal thought of moving to China and make him realise that he is too good for that..
yeah I’m surprised the Aguero swap option doesn’t get more love
people say Arsenal don’t need another injury prone player, but he averages 30 league appearances per season (over the past six years), and pretty consistently, so I don’t buy it
Can you really not understand why “$iteh” (as you called them) would be more attractive to Sanchez?
Yes….just show him Sagna….won only a league cup there in the time which arsenal won 2 fa cups , and is now without club
Yes. Buy them young so they graduate early from the Arjen Robben diving academy.
M’bappe Alexis Ozil
Xhaka Ramsey
Kolasnic/Ox Bellerin/Ox
Monreal Kos Mustafi
Cech
Bench: Giroud, Welbz, Theo, Coq, El Neny, Holding, Martinez
Reserves: Iwobi, Cazorla, BFG, Chambers, Maitland Niles, Gabriel
If everyone stays fit then we can win the league.
I think we all know how this will end. That said, would it be too much to sit down with Sanchez and say the following: 1) We can’t sell you to a rival, the fan base will go mental and we lose more than we gain. He doesn’t need to be the brain of Chile for him to understand that. Nobody else is making an offer this year it seems. 2) Sign a contract and help us make some money from you if you leave. We have accommodated your every wish since you joined, and treated you like gold, so… Read more »
Yeah, this is the sensible thing to do. It worked on Suarez, who is a much more difficult customer than Alexis.
The only remotely palatable option of Sanchez going to city being ok is if we get aguero in return.
Top flight football sucks right now.
Arjen Robben Diving Pool, hahaha well played you made my morning with that one!
Not related, but latest news is Bellerin wants out this summer. With Juve it seems wanting 60-70mill, for Sandro, how much will Wenger want for Bellerin. ‘Well errr, well err 10-15 mill is OK – pathetic as all Wengers transfer dealings if this happens. Sanchez to CITEY, well err well errrr etc. God Retire you old multi millionarre old fool.
swap him to PSG for Draxler.
As things get more desperate for both Alexis’s agent and the club, in the end the likely concession is that Alexis will sign a 2+1year extension with a clause that they win silverware or get back into the champions league.