Arsene Wenger says that although it’s his decision to keep Alexis Sanchez this summer, he could be overruled by the board.
However, he believes that he has the backing of those above him despite the fact that selling the Chilean could bring in a substantial amount of money this summer.
The Arsenal manager’s message has been consistent all through the off-season about his desire to keep Sanchez at the club, although there have been some whispers that the prospect of losing such a valuable asset for free has given some of the people at board level pause for thought.
“It’s my decision,” he said, “but after the board has to of course agree with me. And if they don’t agree we have to consider it as well, and I will accept it.
“But the board is behind me on that.”
Wenger also hinted that the wage demands sought by Alexis and Mesut Ozil, who has yet to commit to a new deal, could be in excess of what the club can afford to pay, and even if the players leave for free it might be more costly to keep them if they sign new deals.
“If you let the player go and you buy somebody you spend maybe more than you lose,” he said.
“And as well if you extend the contracts it costs you maybe more than you lose when you keep the player.
“So you have to consider the length of the contract as well that the players want. So all that is in consideration, the financial sacrifice is not as heavy as it looks.
“You can have an estimation of what it costs if you lose the player, what it costs if you extend the player, and all that. What it costs if you buy a new player. You can do that, approximately.
“After that, the ratio between what the player will cost, what he brings back, this has gone. How can you quantify today what Neymar costs? Will he bring €300million back? It’s impossible to say.
“There is a part that is rational, and the other part is completely irrational: it is passion, ego, pride, you can call that how you want. How much is that worth financially?
“Maybe that’s down to every club.”
If nothing else, he’s put it up to the board because it’s clear that any sale now will be them going over Wenger’s head.
Sounds like backtracking to me.
Expect Sanchez to be sold to Barcelona by close of the transfer window.
$75m should seal the deal
If we are looking to offload Sanchez, we should be picking up the phone and getting onto PSG straight away. Those guys are literally going guano over there. They would easily pay to have Sanchez. Or… there is another solution. I know, I know, I know that swap deals don’t happen ever, they’re super rare. BUT – just hear me out – I would take Draxler in exchange for Alexis. I think it would keep Mesut around because they’re super good buddies. I also think Draxler has that ability to be absolutely lethal for us. Yeah, Draxler isn’t Alexis, in… Read more »
Hypothetically
If we sold Alexis and Ozil for £130mill?
Signed Mbappe and Lemar for £200mill
On less wages on 5yr deals?
And managed to remove the impending cloud?
Would that be good business from the club?
Good “business”? Maybe.
Good for our title chances this year? Not really.
Our squad isn’t good enough to win the league this year even if Alexis & Ozil stay.
The squad is good enough, the way they are coached and organised isn’t.
My worries are not about this season but the next and the ones after that. If we lose all 4 on a free how much are we going to have to spend to replace even ozil and sanchez alone? At the inflated prices we face now. We should have been negotiating 18 months ago at least and if the signs wasn’t good then we sell them from a postion of strength and buy replacemnets with the money. Now we lose all on a free and have to hope the club have the bollox to spend big to replace them depsite… Read more »
especially given that next season’s transfer window is affected by the World Cup and is even shorter!
& importantly that AW will only have 1 year left on his contract! Question is: do you let AW spend big then or wait for a new manager to come in & build the team that he wishes?
Except there is nothing to prove they would be as successful
Yeah but u talking hypotetically which makes no sense. For me we have to keep our best players. You cannot win the league by selling your best players to a rival.
I think it would be good long term business, so long as both those inbound players turned out to fulfill their potential. That’s far from a given. Even further from a given is that we would have any hope of signing them both for $200M. Even further still is that we could get $130M for Ozil and Alexis. I think we can get $60M for Alexis from Citeh. Not sure anyone is really that interested in Ozil. I’d pay up big time on wages for Alexis to tie him down on new contract extension. I’d pay up for Ox a… Read more »
Obviously don’t know the value of Ozil.
Or obviously don’t see the value of Ozil the way you do. I live in California so don’t get to that many games live. But i’ve watched him in the flesh 5 times over last two seasons and every performance on TV. He has flashes of inspiration now and again, but generally disappears against the big teams (like when i saw live him away at Citeh and Barca) and isn’t even that impactful against the average teams (did you see the game against Leicester last Friday?). Don’t get me wrong – i do observe his occasional brilliance and probably appreciate… Read more »
This is why stats like xgChain are so useful.
https://twitter.com/StatsBombIQ/status/842004666061869056
Basically, Ozil is involved in the build up to many of Arsenal’s goals. This can be proven statistically using xgChain. Not only that, but when you watch the goals Ozil is involved in, they typically involve his outrageous vision and passing technique.
I don’t think the right argument against Özil is to attack his value. He’s a brilliant player, and honestly the best at what he does. The argument I’d take is Özil requires a significant amount of accommodation, especially in the 3-4-3/3-5-2 we started with on Friday. He’s the reason Bellerín has to start the buildup so high up the pitch, which leaves us vulnerable to the press-counter. Now that I’ve said that, I will also say I think Özil is totally worth that accommodation, and have no idea how we’d replace his vision in this squad. It would surely take… Read more »
Good analysis; would only add that Ozil is even better when there is someone like Alexis near him.
Sorry but you only see on tv what they want you to see. The man puts in plenty of yards and is a sublime player. Any Tom, Dick or Henderson can run around for 90 minutes and make themselves look busy. Adding value through assists and superb passing is in extremely short supply. Running around like a cross country runner anyone can do.
You mean like equalling the most assists in premiership history. Yep he just doesn’t influence games. I’m a season ticket holder so see home games live and Ozil is a truly sublime footballer. Yet when I watch the game back on tv you would think Ramsey had a stormer and Ozil was missing. So many buy into the narrative.
I get why non Arsenal fans assume Ozil is not as good as they base it on the highlights they see. But as guys who see him week in week out and are still not able to aknowledge how good Ozil is… well I’m flumoxed.
If wenger sells Alexis there will be no coming back from that. The atmosphere will be way more toxic than it was next year and Wenger may as well offer his letter of resignation. WE DONT NEED FUCKING MONEY!!!
He said he’s not selling him!, However he’s saying that the ultimate decision isn’t his though…
Player transfers aside, Arsenal’s sources of funds come from sponsorship and competitive rewards. The closer we come to winning competitions, the greater those rewards, and the more we can command from sponsors who want to be seen in widely televised events. If we take as a given that keeping Sanchez increases our likelihood of winning the Europa league, we can expect an influx of up to £77.5m based on United’s earnings at the end of last season. This includes incentives from sponsors, a bonus for qualifying for the Champion’s League group stage, and the Europa League prize money itself. Regardless… Read more »
I agree. I was thinking just that the other day.
Actually, not Ozil too. That’s a big call.
If we are willing to lose £50million by not accepting an offer for him, what I cannot fathom is why we are only offering £300,000 a week , while we could offer an extra £100,000 a week and accept his wage demands. Surely that makes more sense than to just keep him for the season and lose him on a free? A replacement would be more or less impossible to come by unless we fork out £80m, £90m, £100m and the list of candidates is extremely short. To put it another way, we only need to pay an extra £11m… Read more »
rise top earners to £400K a week and you end up having to massively increase all our best players wages by a lot, and even the lesser ones wages go up too.
Its reported that Arsenal have offered to double his wages to £300K a week, if that is not enough then so be it, if double current wages is not good enough for the player then its time to say enough is enough.
I assume you’ve got those numbers from the media, rather than actually having any real knowledge of the numbers involved…
A quick back-of-an-envelope calculation: – £400k per week over, say, a 4-year deal is £83m. – Sanchez is currently on £140k a week (according to googlepedia anyway), so at the moment we have him for one more year at a cost of £7m. – So if we signed him up for 4 years on 400k, we’d effectively be paying him £76m for the additional three seasons. £76m in wages, for 3 seasons, with no sell-on value… It’s a sh!t load of money. Wenger might well be thinking he can find a younger player (like Lemar for example) who we could… Read more »
I understand £76million is a shit load of money, but then so is £300,000 for 4 years (£62,400,000) – i.e. the current offer on the table. The question is are we able to replace Sanchez for the next 4 seasons with a player of similar ability while being willing to pay £62m odd? Young players like Lemar or Asensio etc are a gamble. Sanchez is the finished article. In the meantime, we are willing to forgo £50m plus, which is also a shit load of money. As for the statement the other top players will demand higher wages, well they… Read more »
No, it’d be Numberwang.
If we’d shown some ambition and strengthened the defence & midfield maybe Alexis would have signed a new contract.
Interesting to hear Arsene play the can’t compete on wages card again.
And how you can’t have a player earning 5x times more than his team mates.
Maybe if Alexis was earning 5x more? And some of our fringe players less?
We’d be able to move them on and get Alexis to sign on?
Our dead wood are paid more than sp*rs star players!
Their decision to sit in the reserves on big wages rather than take a pay cut to play regular first team football tells you everything you need to know about their mentality as sportsmen.
Your describing Walcott in a nutshell.
So much respect for Perez, had one season, didn’t play as much as he wanted and looks to get out straight away.
Walcott doesn’t care that his path is blocked in a World Cup year
When asked about transfers at other clubs he said he doesn’t follow football, hasn’t got the time.
Aw has made it clear he doesn’t want Perez who was treated appallingly.
I am. Walcott optimizes everything that’s wrong with our club & why we never challenge for the title.
Players have it far too easy at Arsenal. No matter how poor their performance their boss puts his arm round them & defends them.
So winning the FA Cup three out of four years and making the Champs League every year apart from season isn’t good enuf for you. Zzzzzzzzzzz. Go support Leicester or someone like that who never win anything… oh wait. Our squad would be better than the Leicester one which won the EPL. But we’ve got no chance. Love your attitude. Not.
The season Leicester won the title we decided not to sign a single outfield player. We thought it was a better idea to renew contracts of Arteta+Rosicky and back JW10+Rambo to stay fit. You didn’t need to employ captain hindsight to realise that was a terrible idea. We signed Elneny in the Jan, he hardly played until Mid March, at which point we’d already f***ed it. When the club get things right they deserve praise. When they get things wrong they deserve it criticism. Again this summer we’ve only done 50% of the incomings we’ve needed and failed to move… Read more »
We didn’t renew the contracts of Rosicky and Arteta that season and Ramsey did stay fit, playing over 45 games.
I agree summer 2015 was a mistake only bringing in Cech, but there’s no need to add bells and whistles to it.
We did renew the contracts.
Arteta signed a new deal That was announced July 2015.
And we decided also to take the option included in Rosicky’s contract of extending for 12 months that summer.
Rambo missed two months of the season Oct-Nov and March-April.
I don’t need to add bells and whistles when I’m stating facts
For me he’s just relied on his pace & never tried to improve his overall game.
Alexis workrate should have inspired & rubbed off on him as it has with the Ox but it clearly hasn’t.
He held the club to ransom to get his pay rise & now he seems happy to collect his massive wages while sitting on the bench.
Jesus . what’s the point if having a good squad if we can’t even challenge Leicester for the title. Granted they won title but they did it with the lowest point tally since last 20-30 years. So that makes them one of the worst champions and we finished what 7 8 points behind them. That is so fucked up on so many levels. We couldn’t even challenge Leicester do you think we stand a chance against teams that spend 150 million every year.
I’m not his biggest fan, and he drives me fuckin’ nuts when he bottles it in tackles or has one of those “skip around the park like a 9 year old girl and do nothing” games. But, i don’t think this above describes him. He wants to do well and did deliver 19 goals last season. He just doesnt quite have that cutting edge and drive that you see in Alexis say.
He’s a decent finisher and his pace allows him to get in good positions.
I just don’t think he fits our style of play and he seems to be the epitome of just cruising.
At 28 I think we’d be wise to toe punt him clean out the door at the first sign of any interest
yeah lets sell him to liverpool, they could do with his 19 goals, lets stick with perez he scored against Basel, Nottingham Forrest, Bournemouth and Sutton.
If a shit player scores 15+ goals a season, then can we have more shit players please?
When Alexis loses possession, you need players commited enough to tackle and collect the ball.
Because that would have given him a payrise? Bizarre argument.
It’s a clever move, definitely puts blame on board if a deal.is sanctioned, however he should be walking for his own sanity if that happened.
For what it’s worth I firmly believe Alexis stays for this season and Ozil signs a new deal,
Alexis must stay. I don’t care about losing him for free next summer. We are stronger with him. Ozil can run down his contract too if he wants. Ramsey and Wilshere can cover if he leaves.
I guess there’s a power struggle going on behind the scenes, otherwise Wenger wouldn’t be so direct in his comments. But the weirdest part of the summer is Ozil. Seemingly no club of much stature is interested in him, but he won’t sign up to the 100k per week salary bump. I realise that he can get a nice signing on bonus next summer if he leaves on a free, but a top Turkish club / good German side isn’t going to offer the kind of money that would make up for two years lost earnings (the improved contract having… Read more »
Ozil would be mad to sign for a £100K bump until he sees what Alexis is being offered, If Arsenal give in and pay Alexis the £400K a week he is said to be demanding, then Ozil would be in line to get well over the £100K bump.
Bayern would next summer give him massive wages and a massive signing on bonus if they could sign him for free. Its how they like to do their business, its how they keep transfer spend down.
Alexis is Alexis. Ozil is not Alexis.
If Bayern wanted him they would’ve signed him by now.
Bayern don’t pay PL sized big salaries…
Keeping alexis is a financial gamble worth taking for arsenal as strange as it sound and the board knows it except they receive a crazy bid over £80 million. Let look at the numbers; If reports are to believed city had a £45 million bid turned down but in this market the best reasonable bid we can receive is about £50-55million. Replacing alexis with similar or better quality will cost more than £100million which will be a loss of about £45million with no guarantee of success. Keeping alexis without the managerial issue this year will guarantee us champions league football… Read more »
If they want to get a big sponsorship deal then they should show some ambition & act like a big club.
Take a loss to get the dead wood out of the club & off the wage bill. Stop buying moneyball players like Elneny & Gabriel that have been a complete waste of time & money & go out & buy a top quality DM & CB so we can challenge for the title.
I thought we were promised change but it just seems like more of the same to me.
ElNeny has been better than a lot of the players in the first team.
That doesn’t make Elneny good. It makes a lot of players in the first team bad. Elneny is an average player suited to an average team. Nothing against him, he’s working to the best of his ability but his ability isn’t good enough to compete at the highest level.
If we’re serious about competing for the league & in Europe it makes sense for us to have players who are better than our opponents in our first team.
If I read your comment correctly, unless you have a magic crystal ball or have the gift of seeing well into the future, it is not a ‘guarantee’ that keeping Alexis will get us in CL. All it does is gives you a much better chance of doing it.
I hope once the window is closed they both take a pay rise and stay on. That way we could sell next summer if needed
Could we have an Arseblog article where people are taking it as an opportunity to slag off the manager or the club? Also, it’s fucking ridiculous to me when keyboard experts write things with utter certainty as to what’s wrong with the club; as if you fucking know what goes on – you need to learn to separate your feelings and assumptions from the facts? Even if I accept that there’s anything wrong with the club, which I don’t by the way, you do realise the club pays people who actually know what they’re on about to manage this stuff… Read more »
Let them sack Conte at the end of season, pray he will be on holiday a year, and sign him when Wenger 2 year contract ends.
Oops, I thought we are talking about Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain to Chelsea
I will never feel sorry for Wenger been booed anymore. He is an economist for the club more than the head coach.
Lol the board. No power and no input.
Wenger has direct line to Kroenke as evident by the catalyst for change being nothing
My issue with all of this “we can’t afford his wage demands” type stuff, is whoever you replace him with is going to cost you close to that plus a huge transfer fee. I can’t see anyone who’s a winger/striker that has stats like Sanchez last season, that would cost you less than £80m in today’s market. Then look at how much any of them are being paid that come close… They’re probably going to want more than that to come to a club that isn’t playing in the champions league. To me, we need to sit him down in… Read more »
This champions league stuff is just papertalk. Ibrahimovic and Pogba went to United in a season with no CL. Why? They were on fucking enormous contracts. That’s the be all and end all. All the rest is PR and bullshit agent spin.
Thats BS. Pogba has plenty of time to get back to CL. Zlatan had no real options in Europe for a large salary unless he wanted to leave for China.
I’m gonna say what I’m gonna say and I don’t give a damn of the downvotes… I think Ozil is getting away with far too little scrutiny and attention. I don’t think he works as well in the new formation and unless we sacrifice and build around him, it’s not worth it. I think last friday’s performance by him should be a healthy reminder to some who have seemingly given him a free pass to always start. It’s one thing when your status isn’t supported by performances, but if you’re also running down your contract too, then he deserves no… Read more »
Just maybe you are in the vocal minority that is trying to create this narrative of Ozil being useless for Arsenal? Iwobi is not even close to what Ozil does in the games. Your insane to suggest that and it seems like you want Arsenal to get worse so you have more to gripe about with Arsenal.
Whilst i agree on keeping Alexis, I do believe that there is also some room for pause. Potentially, as it stands we could loose Alexis, Ozil, the Ox all walking away for free, & all at a time when AW will have just 1 year left. The question then will be does he spend additional money (when so much has gone for free) or does he leave that up to the next manager…?
So, does that mean if Alexis does sign a new contract at the end of the season, he will be like a new signing? 🙂
Sell ozil and ox. Il be willing to keep alexis at all expense albeit letting him go for free
Stick to your guns.