Arsene Wenger says Alexis Sanchez will accept Arsenal’s decision not to sell him this summer.
The boss also revealed that the Chile international has been fully focused since returning to training two days ago after an extended summer break and could play a part in Sunday’s Community Shield clash with Chelsea.
Facing the media after today’s open training session at the Emirates, Wenger once again made clear that his star man will play his football for the Gunners this season.
“Of course [I have spoken to him]. I speak to my players. I will not give anything away on that [what was said].
“The only thing I can tell you is he is focused. My decision is clear. He will stay, it’s as simple as that and he will respect that.”
Sanchez has been linked with Manchester City and Paris Saint Germain but with Arsenal unwilling to sell to a rival Premier League club and the French side splashing out stupid money on Neymar it looks as though he’ll have to run down the final 11-months of his contract before moving to pastures new.
The boss was certainly more guarded about whether his star man might sign a contract extension at the Emirates, something the club have been negotiating for 18 months.
“We do not want to come out on that,” said Wenger.
“Every negotiation has to be a little bit secret. Transparency in society is very pushy, but we have to resist a little bit – as much as we can.
“We know as well we have a duty to inform people. But to talk about some things is not information anymore, it’s suicide.”
On whether Sanchez, who scored against Chelsea in the FA Cup final, will feature at Wembley at the weekend, Wenger added: “He looks good. He had a good rest so needs to work on his fitness but once he’s in a game he’s sharp and looks like he’s never been away.
“He’s over the flu – that was never a problem for us.”
“I haven’t decided yet [if he will play]. We want as well not to take too big a gamble on a player who has just come back.”
Great news. Alexis for one more season.
Or sign up and you’ll get paid a lot more, Alexis. Go on, your dogs love London.
I would prefer “has accepted” rather than “will accept”
Exactly, will accept means he hasn’t actually accepted
Wow, thanks for clarifying.
Which also means he wants to leave
Water is wet, innit
Dictionary corner.
Well said, Cheesy. Spin doctor at it again
But can you say both in French?
He stays atleast for one more year..good to hear that. Arsenal shows a hint of a spine to stand up to players leaving..almost happy. If the Arsenal wins the league, will be very very happy.
Love the iron will. Hope he performs despite the disruptions from December.
Question i dont know the answer to, have any players ever signed a new contract at the very end of their original term? Just wondering at what point to be fully resigned to losing him.
Walcott signed in January 2013 with 6 months to go
Not entirely sure to be honest, good question. I’m sure there are some but I can’t think of any off hand. For all the abuse Theo gets from some people for ‘holding the club to ransom’ people tend to forget that we let him go into the last season of his contract in 2012 with a ‘gentleman’s agreement’ with Arsene that he would sign. And he did, but not until January 2013. In the modern football world, that is something to be hugely admired. As for Alexis…..very hard to see him signing a new deal but I have no doubts… Read more »
Vardy isn’t nearly as talented as Mahrez though. Mad Effort without any skill, is basically Mohamad El-Neny. I prefer max effort with max skill…aka Alexis Sanchez
I wasn’t advocating buying Vardy, just using him as an example to show why I wouldn’t like to buy Mahrez.
Claiming elneny without skill is plain silly.
Yaya Toure
Didn’t John Terry do that at Chelsea last season…looked like they were about to get rid and then did a U turn at the last minute and gave him one more year…? Could be wrong tho
If he’s not signing a new contract and leaving for nothing in 9 months he may play every single game for us this season.
Come January we’ll know who he has signed for. That’ll be some kick in the nads.
He will most likely leave next summer but i have no problem with that if he gives full commitment this season. I would prefer if we signed Mahrez now so that we have a quality winger when he does leave
I have serious doubts over his on pitch performance and commitment from January onwards. If you know you’re leaving and have most likely agreed to join another club, and with a World Cup in the summer, the mentality would be to avoid injury as opposed to giving it your all for the last 6 months. I’d love to believe otherwise though…
Really, you think alexis will want to avoid injury the guy almost broke his relationship with wenger wanting to play every minute even when he was way in the red zone last year, alexis breathes football and i can say he will be fully committed like when he signed for us not doubt about that.
Those always commenting here that big players want to play and win CL, do you think Neymar is going to PSG to win even more trophies or even more money ?
He will win he league for sure, the CL I doubt it .
Did you see him play for Chile against Argentina last summer? Did you the pictures of his ankle afterward?
Problem is based on last season Mahrez hasn’t the quality we need.
Based on the season before he has more than enough
Relief!!! The forward line of Alexis, Lacazette, and Ozil, Kolasinac and Ox on the wings is quite a tasty attacking machine to unleash on any opponent. If we manage to get Lemar and , may be Seri, then who knows?
He “will” accept it… ie he hasn’t yet accepted it so far.
Not sure this is over quite yet …
Knowing alexis I’m sure he will be in the squad for chelsea and it will be good for him to give him 15-20 minutes at the end to get some fitness before the opening game where maybe we will need to come on again as a sub. As for the debate he will stay or not, from what I saw in today’s training from him kissing the badge smiling and training with high spirits I can conclude he already accepted that he will stay. New contract, I doubt it but we will have a chance to convince him till January,… Read more »
We’ll be 5th or 6th come January because we’ll still play open football in midfield and defence, so he’ll be off and it will have cost us circa £60m
It is not your money!!! The Arsenal is one of the top 5 richest club, its time we prove it!!
I couldn’t care less about the money as long as it doesn’t impinge on Arsenal’s ability to be successful, throwing away tens of millions of pounds doesn’t look like the best way of doing that to me
Jimboy
Top 5 most valueable but not top 5 richest. Top 10 richest..? probably – 9th or 10th. But the thing is, top 5 don’t even have a budget so no competition there. PSG just spent more on a plyer than every other club is worth in French league.
At this point I have a hard time feeling anything towards him other than a good player who I expect to do a job for us one last season. I’m more concerned about the club having its act together enough to line up a few good replacements for 18/19. That is what really matters from here until then.
Please my stance on the Sanchez situation has changed. If Neymar is worth a total €450,000,000,then the club should pay whatever it takes to keep our own Neymar (Sanchez). Football is changed and we must change with it.
Fuck that. No one is bigger than the club and those who delude themselves into thinking otherwise can try their luck elsewhere. There will be other players who appreciate being at Arsenal in the near future and that’s about all there is to it.
You know whenever a situation like this arises the club will paint the play black so we fans won’t complain when they sell them. That’s exactly what happened with RVP whose only crime was insisting that the club acquires better players to help us compete for the league and the manager felt he was questioning his and the clubs ambition, now turned the fans on him so they won’t be crucified for selling. But to show he was correct, he won the league in Man United with those better players he wanted around him. We shouldn’t follow a club like… Read more »
The boy who wanted Man U got it for a season and then got shipped off to Turkey for his efforts. I’m sure he feeks it was worth it. Meanwhile here we are three FA cup wins later so fuck him.
1 EPL is now worth more than 3 FA Cups.
OK.
Line drawn it seems…and the right decision
Even if he does leave for a free we will have got 3 wonderful years with him for a mere £31.7 million. In this day and age where Sp*rs buy Sissoko for the same price…
Spurs- here to make us giggle (mostly)
The same Spurs who bought 2 of the best centre halves in the league for 11m while we got the vastly inferior Gabriel for the same amount & who bought Dier & Wanyama while we bought Elneny.
Sissoko was hilarious but for the most part we are sadly in no position to laugh at them these days.
Why don’t you go and support Spurs then?
Dear God is that the level Arsenal fans have descended to? Pathetic.
While Spurs had to shop for first choice CBs – we have had the league’s best CB in Kos and a great leader in Per. We have bought more than just Gabriel and Elneny (both good players who don’t deserve to be mocked) try Google if you don’t know the squad well.
Some Arsenal fans keep thinking that the guy in the next stall has a bigger dong.
‘Try Google if you don’t know the squad well’. I repeated my earlier comment re the level Arsenal fans have descended to. Pathetic.
If we cant laugh at spurs then whats the fucken point mate?
If Arsene gets the finger out & makes us a better team than them again then I will laugh at them Louder than most. At the moment I can’t, cos it breaks my heart that their side is clearly better than ours.
Calm down mate. They’ve won fuck all for years, even then its a league fucken cup. They’re shite. 3 fa cups in 4 years. Cheer the fuck up when it comes to spurs. They’re hilarious
Calm down mate. It’s just am opinion that’s different to yours.
Sorry, I keep forgetting the do Gooder Gooners don’t allow that. Agree with everything positive that is said or else you’re not a real fan. It’s so insular & divisive.
I just mentioned how laughable spurs are. Really mate, take a deep breath and relax
Judging by the language, my level of calm is something you can only dream of….
I little bit Fuck isn’t always a bad scary swear word may man. You are accusing a lot of well mined gunners of things that are just a bit silly. I’m just enjoying myself slagging off the spuds. It kinda feels like your trying to spoil that party of mine. I’m sad now- not angry. Night night. Please don’t hit me
I’m starting to think Sanchez never wanted a move this year, but was just posturing with the aim to get a big payout as a free agent. Bayern Munich said his wage demands were unrealistic. Hell, PSG said so too, and after that they splurged 200 million on Neymar.
It’s call driving the price down and is a reflection of Arsenal’s weak negotiating position, both those teams would have no problem paying the wages he wants. Why do you think we haven’t sold any of our fringe players? It’s because we hold a weak hand and the only offers we’re getting are at best 50p in the £1. Our only options now are how much of a loss are we going to take? A low transfer fee and subsided wages for the length of the players current contract or no transfer fee and pay their wages for another year,… Read more »
Scene 1.
A miserable Alexis Sanchez sits slumped on the bench.
Wenger ‘We won’t pay you 400k a week,but here’s a nice new football!’
Alexis Leaping up… Chases after ball… Beats 3 players… Smashes ball into net.
Alexis ‘YEAH!!! Come on you Gooners!’
Wenger ‘sometimes it’s almost too easy’
The End
???
Can somebody explain why Arsenal allow so many players to reach the final year of their contract? Sanchez, Ozil, Oxlade-Chamberlain…. Does the responsibility fall with Gazidis? Surely Arse cannot afford to let the three players potentially leave for nothing next year?
My heart says Alexis will be the perfect professional and his commitment on the pitch will not falter.
My head says after all is said and done he’ll join City on a free and that makes me want to go and play with traffic.
If we finish outside the top 4 it’s a disaster, if we get back into the CL and win the league or Europa it’s a masterstroke. I guess we’ll find out in May!
Am I right in thinking he can talk to clubs outside of England from January and English clubs from June next month?
Think so
This is a victory. Even Barcelona (let’s face it, a superior team) couldn’t hang on to neymar, arguably a better player.
It’s a completely different and therefore non-analogous situation.
I believe Spanish law (or perhaps the Spanish FA) requires all contracts to have a release clause. Barcelona put one in Neymar’s contract that was intended to be so high that no one would ever invoke it.
PSG is acting for reasons of geopolitics, not football: Qatar just bought 7 Italian ships for $6 billion; a couple of months ago they spent $12 billion on American fighter jets; Neymar is cheap in comparison.
i think we’re pretty sure Alexis ain’t gonna sign no new deal (unless we win the epl or the cl, which is realistically unlikely). Why not give him a 300k, ask him to sign a new contract with a minimum clause of 40 or 50m (reasonable price to him), and then sell him next season for that money. he’d have the bumper new contract $ this season, and also get to leave next season if someone comes up with the $.
Don’t think we can write off our season just yet
Strange how people can disagree with this …
It’s not really, we’re playing Thursday/Sunday football this season which history has shown us is a massive disadvantage.
And for everyone who thinks we’ll just throw the Europa league, 1) will our team be much different to the one that plays the early games in the champions league? and 2) It’s easier to qualify for the champions league via the Europa League than via top 4, as demonstrated by Man U when they’d given up on the league by the time we played them towards the back end of last season
It’s not strange as there are a lot of negative people on here.
Seems particularly bad today
Realistic people that have been watching the downward spiral of this club in the last 10 years and have seen nothing this summer that halts that decline. In fact their position on Sanchez just cements that, compounding one bad decision with another one, bad business all round.
He’s been offered 300 grand and didn’t take it. He wants such fantastical money that even Bayern Munich backed off and no other suitors have stepped forward. So that’s that. The season starts in a week and it’s time to knuckle down one last time and get on with what we pay him for. What happens at the end of that is anyone’s guess but he’s likely to be off somewhere else and so be it. Players come and go, the worlds turns and the club will recruit other greats in the future. Why are people acting as if he’s… Read more »
the closest we can compensate for losing Alexis is to play 2 strikers up front. 2 pacy strikers with excellent movement to stretch play, and with 2 deadly wing backs to bomb forward and supply good, accurate crosses in (low cross, high cross)
That seems to be the plan
Looking back to the sagas around suarez and de gea (and probably others that I’ve forgotten) it seemed to be normal for players to sign up in these situations (once the last summer of their contract had passed). I suspect it was a ‘sign the deal, we’ll up your wages and we’ll sell you next summer for more money’ agreement. It would have seemed risky to go into the last year of your deal given the physical risks of the job. Perhaps the incentive of being able to demand such huge wages as a free agent now persuades players to… Read more »
Outside of not getting the ‘surplus to requirement’ players off the books, we’ve handled this transfer season flawlessly so far. Sign 2 more and I have no complaints at all
The surplus players will probably be got rid of when we are closer to the end of the window. All premiership clubs set their ambitions sky high at the beginning of the window and when their unrealistic pursuits inevitably fail the likes of West Brom will realise that they are actually pants, their manager is a sour gobshite and they need to strengthen with realistic targets to stop their fans going mental. This is when we dangle Gibbs in front of them enticingly.
Not sure I would wish that on Gibbo
Was just going to say, what has Gibbs done to deserve Tony Pulis?
Nobody deserves Tony Pulis
Not even Pulis?
…unless a good offer other than City (or a PL side) comes in for him (complete the sentence)
Awaiting merry go round after (IF) Neymar is sold, and then Mbappe. Penty of teams with money to spend thereafter.
Does anyone here think that the Alexis (and Ozil) situation was part of a discussion before Arsene signed the new contract?
What I mean by that, he told the board that Alexis will not be sold at all if they want Arsene to continue. Even to us supporters, it makes sense to make money of Alexis while he is in the final season, but it seems Arsene (and Arsenal) are not going for the money like before.
In a way though I see wenger’s willingness to risk losing what’s amortised off of 35m we paid for Alexis. Just look at the prices today, Neymar at 200m, Mbappe quoted at 100m + , Mendy even goes for 52m, losing a small part of 35m is chum change for a player of Alexis’s calibre. If we do end up keeping him bc City are the only real option, then we only really need to look at someone in deep midfielf to strengthen. I say get Pastore. He’s offering the number 10 shirt to Neymar. An experienced player who has… Read more »
But can he hassle and Harry? Can he hound opposition players when we are being attacked? We need as well someone who can do that not just the forward forays
Let’s enjoy Alexis on the last push to win the PL. I’m sure he will try to go out as glorious as he can and hopefully that means winning the premier league. This guy wants to win it all.