According to the Mirror Alexis Sanchez said his goodbyes to his Arsenal teammates and left the team hotel last night as some kind of breakthrough was found between the Gunners and Manchester United over the deal which will see him move there.
It will be a swap deal with Henrikh Mkhitaryan and it had been deadlocked, with suggestions that the entire thing hinged on approval from the Armenian’s agent, Mino Raiola.
Basically, that means he was waiting for the right amount of money to be paid to him for brokering the deal, and the Italian is infamous for ensuring that he gets what he wants when his players are sold.
He collected almost £20m from United for the Paul Pogba transfer in the summer of 2016, and when dealing with two hugely wealthy clubs, he wasn’t going to let it happen without getting what he wants.
It’s an unfortunate aspect of modern football, but one that’s almost impossible to avoid if you want to take players from these so-called super agents.
The medicals for both players should take place today, but neither player will be able to play for their new clubs having missed the 12 noon deadline on Friday for them to be available.
Hopefully, it will all be over soon and we get can on with the important business of fretting about how we use Mkhitaryan and where exactly he’ll play in a team with Mesut Ozil.
Are we getting any money as well or is just a swap deal?
Thought it was a cash+player deal too. In fairness it matters not, we have cash to buy players, we just don’t use it. If this goes through, all we can do is welcome Henrikh to the club and hope he helps reignite us. We still need to tie Wilshere down to a new deal, find a replacement for Walcott to give us another option out wide and get over the line with Aubameyang. As for Ozil? I’d like us to keep him, but if he wants to go well have to see how the personnel can cover what he adds… Read more »
We also desperately need a specialised DM and probably a new experienced CB but everyone seems to have forgotten about that with shiny Aubameyang and Mkhtaryian dangled in front of us, a good attack will only get us so far.
We probably do need a been CD though I do feel long term we’re looking at chambers and holding. They seem to click well together and shouldn’t grow as they get more game time. Koscielny for me doesn’t quite do what Mertesacker does off field in terms of education for the younger defenders. So will Ben interesting to see how those two develop. I’m not convinced Mustafi will be here beyond the summer. Seemed he wanted a transfer away for whatever reason so that may play a part. We also need to recruit cover for or a replacement for Xhaka.… Read more »
Agree with you. But impressed with Elneny today. Amazing what difference it makes givin Xhaka a bit of help in there.
There should be a club policy where we are banned from dealing with Mouriniho. I still remember the petulant man-child blocking us from signing Demba Ba and Cech only signed due to Abramovic’s gentlemans agreement.
I don’t think MaureenO has much control over the transfers at Utd.
Yup im very confused so far. Mancs offered $20m cash only. Man u offered mkh + $35m? Or is it just mkh?
Probably Mkh+10m in the best case
You’re right. It was initially Mkhitaryan + cash. Something then changed and it became straight player swap. As soon as it did, looked liked Sanchez’s weekly wage went up. These things change daily though, so who knows?
Latest reports say it’s a straight swap with no cash (other than cash paid to agents!)
In wenger’s interview (where he first talked about keeping the Auba deal a “secret until it’s over the line”, he said it’ll be a straight swap. I assume the fees Utd are paying are for Mkhi & his agent to break his contract.
I have to say I could totally understand why he wanted to join City. They’re playing exciting football and they have big chances of winning a lot of things with that squad over the next years. But the fact that he’s chosen United tells me it’s not about ambitions or style of play or that he wants to work with a certain manager but only about the money. And that makes it a lot easier for me to say goodbye to him. United won’t win anything that really matters before we will. I’m pretty sure about that. Would have been… Read more »
To me it just says that he wanted to get away from Arsenal and was prepared to move to any old shit-show to do so, and to be honest… who can blame him.
Er no, it says his wage expectations are way beyond what Arsenal or even $iteh were willing to pay.
Given their performance this season: how much City needs Sanchez?
Not much, I think.
and…
http://www.goal.com/en-gb/news/sanchez-dyche-manchester-united-arsenal-harry-potter-burnley/1cdxxq22ezvo51ry7ofyluviye
Bit of both i’d have thought
If only you read that aloud
Totally agree with you ! The same arguments I was using in discussion with other heartbroken gunners. If he’d go to city he would celebrate PL title at the end of the season. By going to United he showed his greedy nature which is easier to digest lol. They won’t winnfuck all this season so as far as I’m concerned it’s the same as us haha
What does it matter if a player is signing for the money or not? If you are from chile you probably came to Europe for the money otherwise you’d be playing for your beloved Colo Colo or Universidad de Chile. Wilshere is Arsenal through and through but the thing holding up his new deal is financial. I don’t see you up in arms saying it’s all about the money, greed and the usual stuff thrown around. This is their job and personally I don’t care what they are earning or trying to earn. What I really care about is what… Read more »
Thankyou gooner!! Personally, I hate the money excuse too.
Footballers have relatively short careers, so I don’t care about their wage demands. It’s ultimately up to the clubs to decide if a wage being asked for is acceptable or insane.
If a player leaves for the money, I don’t care
I agree. He comes from Tocopilla in Chile where the majority of men his age work down a mine. I completely understand he wants to get the most money from what is his last professional contract.
gooner FTW comment as usual. 🙂
Henceforth, I hope we never ever buy any club’s high profile rejects. Other than the ones from Manure United and ofcourse Real Madrid’s.
Because one club, true to its colloquial name, is managed by one. And the other….well, that club is just too much of a mad bastard club to even be counted as a ‘proper’ club by most non-glory hunting, footballer worshiping fanatics er….supporters.
“United won’t win anything that really matters before we will”
They are the current EL champions
They are 11 points ahead of us
Their squad is full of young/exceptional/world-class players
Even if their manager is antipathic (at best) he knows exactly how to win
and they’re just sniching our best player
Wishful thinking…
I dont believe sanchez is our best player. He scored goals. But fucked up the balance with his turnovers and dinked passes. If only he could dink it to himself. No room for petulance in a dysfunctional team, it compounds the problems
I think you forget about his first 3 seasons.
Statistically speaking (goals/game) he is exactly at the same level as Ian Wright
Not our best player this season but was quite clearly so in the first 3. He has to go now but let’s not rewrite history. (again, like was done for RvP)
No ones rewriting history. But if people cant see that he is and has been also ladt season, a destabilizing factor. The petulance and anger towards your team mates isnt exactly a galvinizing attribute in a team that clearly needs it. It sounds to me arsene wanted to shift him last summer but was told not to and had to tell everyone he isnt for sale.
He was awesome in his first 2 seasons. Last season he scored but i think his behaviour offset the points he earned us in less tangible way. This season he has been wank.
I would argue more anger towards your teammates is desperately needed in this Arsenal squad….but look no point arguing about it, no-one’s opinion going to change at this stage. The whole thing has juat made me sad. Arsene had made a complete bollocks of the last couple of seasons & I fear It’s only going to get worse.
Not in his second, when Ozil was better.
I think it’s about playing time too. He’ll be the number 7 and the main man at utd. He wouldn’t get such assurances going to City.
same goes for ozil, he don’t want to stay so wenger will have to break the bank if he wants to keep him, that’s why he is paying jack peanuts to stay
It was mostly about the money. But then again this is his last big contract, so I think it’s a perfectly reasonable decision to take.
60M in the summer and transfer to city vs united reject and transfer to mourinho now-what an epic failure. The only reason for this transfer to happen is because mourinho wants it and because wenger has to, not the other way round. They will come from it stronger, us weaker, thats very sad.
I think you’re seriously underestimating how good Mkhitaryan could be for us. He’s far more than a United reject.
Would you really exchange sanchez for him in normal circumstances (and not this clusterfuck we created)?
Would there have been a player as good as Mkhitaryan potentially is to buy with that 60 million?
Probably not, but that wasn’t the point you were making. I’m not denying we’ve screwed this up overall, and I’m not saying Mkhi is as good as Alexis. But you were claiming it was obviously way better to sell Alexis for 60m rather than for Mkhitaryan. I think at his best Mkhi’s world class or close to it (Mourinho’s alienated him and ruined his confidence), and we obviously wanted him two summers ago. And 60m doesn’t necessarily buy you much these days. E.g. we were going to have to pay 90m+ for Lemar–a younger player than Mkhi but not necessarily… Read more »
He is but Sanchez is on another level.
yes, but again, the options weren’t Mkhi or Sanchez. The options were Mkhi, or 60m last summer (only 20m now), or letting Sanchez leave for free at the end of the year. Given those three options, I don’t think gettign Mkhi in for Sanchez is a disaster, especially if we also get Auba.
Oh! Get it done FFS.
I know that some of us have (slowly) come around to the idea of letting Utd get Sanchez whilst we get Mkhitaryan in return. Who knows, Mkhitaryan might join the expanding list of creative players who flop under Mourinho but go on to do great things with a manager who doesn’t treat them like a cunt. But imagine if Ozil ALSO joins Utd on a free in the summer (something which is highly possible). We will have lost by far our best two players to Utd in the space of 6 months, making us that much weaker and them commensurately… Read more »
I genuinely feel Ozil is going to sign that’s why the penny pinchers at the club haven’t shipped him off.
I’m pretty pessimistic about ozil, why would he risk running his contract down if he wanted to stay? It’s all gone very quiet.
I really, really hope I’m wrong but I think he’s off. Which is why getting Mkhitaryan now would be a great bit of business.
I think we will sign Ozil because Ozil is the type of guy who does well when he is in the comfort zone and that is exactly what we are. Unlike Sanchez Ozil has already won the biggest trophy in world football. I think he will stay and fight for the PL with us. In fact if we ever manage to win the CL in the next few seasons then the Ballon d’or for sure will go to Ozil because he is the absolute superstar at our club.
Sanchez is clearly a difficult individual to deal with & he’s off to join a Manager who is impossible to deal with. They’ll hate each other within weeks…….if it goes through
I still think we should have bargained for Martial or Cash only deal and invested the cash in Mahrez/Lemar.
Wenger wanted Martial but the new guy wanted henrikh
I don’t think they wanted to sell Martial at a price we’d consider appropriate.
that’s good, hopefully ozil wont be to far behind him, then we can start to rebuild the team with no layabouts in it
So what is it Ronaldo? Utd,Pool or Spurs? Name suggests Utd but won’t be surprised if a spud tbh.You should try doing something else then troll other clubs blog sites though.
I think if Aubameyang comes in along with Mkhi then it’s fantastic for us. I can understand why Wenger wanted to do business with Maureen. Wenger even went as far as praising United and their financial prowess. This deal is a win-win for everybody in the league except City. Why? Because bald Pep and City have gotten too arrogant. What was worth 60 million in the summer is worth nothing for them now. They think they can get any player on the cheap because they have a good squad and a good manager but the reality is City have no… Read more »
I do hope signing Aubameyang hinges on us getting Mikhitaryan and it’s some master plan to link them up again after their success and understanding at Dortmund. However, this is Arsenal and I’m very worried the Aubameyang rumours are just a smoke screen to appease the fans and stop a revolt that we’re losing one of our best players to Utd. We already seem to have cooled on Malcom. I can genuinely see Mikhitaryan being the last player to come in this transfer window and that would simply not be enough.
absolutely correct. Our squad was paper thin at the end of december. We have now lost 3 squad players. Not only do we need to replace them but we desparately need defensive cover as well. I see no sin of any of this happening. It’s going to be a long long end to the season!!
MaureenO isn’t really involved in transfers (obviously he does have the final ‘buy/sell’ say, but he isn’t involved in terms/money etc,).
I know it’s a done deal, but regardless of all the issues surrounding Sanchez’s situation, at the end of the day, I think I might puke seeing Sanchez in a ManUtd jersey.
Dunno, I can already sense this one is gonna hurt bad, real bad…..
It will feel better the first time you see him get turned over
We can all rest assured that he’ll pull out all the stops for his new club and we’ll have to get used to seeing him play better for them than he has this last season. What to remember is that he didn’t want to be here and wasn’t putting in the performance he’s capable of. He had to go and under the circumstances we got a way better deal from it than I could have ever expected.
. Laca
Auba Özil. Mikhi
Wilshere/Rambo AMN/GX
Nacho/Kola Boss Mustafi Hector
. Cech
4-2-3-1
Would seem a waste to buy Aubameyang and play him on the wing.
I know he’s played there before, but he’s been most effective since he moved to play up top. Why buy one of the world’s best strikers to play him as a winger?
To be honest, I’m not sure of the best way of fitting Auba and Laca into the same line up.
I think Lacazette could be good playing support striker to Aubameyang however you’d then have to put Ozil and Mkhtaryan wide which I dont think really suits either of them and wouldn’t leave us with much pace out wide. Will be interesting to see how it works out if it does happen
If it happens, I’d expect those 2 to swap around throughout a game to give opposition defences something a little different every 20 minutes or less.
“Sanchez said goodbyes to his arsenal teammates” – has he even said his hellos yet??
And where the fuck was the careers advisor telling me to consider a job as a football agent??!!
I don’t get it – is it really in the players’ interests to have one of the so called “super-agent” who makes so much money off their careers?
I know they negotiate high paid deals for the players, but you’d think just giving some of the ridiculously huge agent fees to the players instead would make up for that.
Maybe that’s why some players just have their dad/brother as agent.
Sánchez is reported to be going to “earn” £450,000 a week !
but if Aubamyang joins Arsenal means so there is no place for Lacazette
Glad he’s going and it’s not dragging on until the summer but to sell to that utter twonk bucket Maureen at manure is an utter disgrace. This one move confirms that there is zero chance of us getting close to them. Tools.
I don’t get whyfield we should wonder where Özil would play with Mki arrival. Özil is by far a better player and pushing him aside maybe influenced by this Sven would definitely push him away from the club. And then.. good luck, Arsenal.
And Ozil??
Cheerio Sanchez, it was nice knowing you. You are now the enemy though, so I can’t wish you well.
No animosity towards him really, this is the new reality with football stars these days, just look at PEA’s behaviour! Have footballers always been so mercenary?
i see him as a santi replacement
Footballers are so funny. Mikhi obviously doesn’t want to come to arsenal but the moment we sign him, he’ll suddenly let us know we’ve always been his childhood club and how henry is his role model.
They are all just moving around for money and i don’t see why anyone should begrudge them that.
I don’t think they’re all like that. Mikhi is being pushed out by mou and has no option but to leave, and we were interested in him before he went to yanited, so it could work out. What seriously annoys me is that we are prepared to offload Oli, who is a big man with a big heart who obviously loves us and is loyal to us, to buy a total fuckwit with issues who probably won’t score more goals than Oli would if he got some service and is no better than Laca if he got some service. Why????… Read more »
The press are already portraying him as a closet Arsenal fan, as he said we were his favourite team in an interview in 2009 (which is obviously a very different time):
https://www.uefa.com/memberassociations/news/newsid=832354.html
It’s mildly embarrassing if he doesn’t really want to join us now, but to be honest I won’t care if he comes here and performs.
Don’t begrudge them a good living but that much money is just obscene !
That’s Man U’s problem now. Let’s see how it turns out for him under Mourinho.
To the tune of Woah Black Betty.
Ohh, fuck Sanchez. Aubameyang
Can’t wait to see how much Jose enjoys him giving the ball away 30+ times per match.
For what it’s worth, for me Man United are getting a bad deal here. If the figures are to be believed then Sanchez is being ridiculously overpaid. 350k a week is a joke. He just isn’t that good. That said, it’s sad to that, yet again, one of our best players is heading towards one of our biggest rivals. I don’t know what to make of Mkhitaryan: he seemed to be a pretty average player at United, but had a great reputation before he arrived at Old Trafford. Maybe he’ll take off here. I don’t know about you, but I… Read more »
Sanchez fee is rumoured to be £450k a week (including the sign on fee paid over the life of the contract)! It’s not a cut price deal for them at all.
Let’s get this over with and move on!
Can he play centre back or holding midfield?
Can Mkhi and Auba be registered for the EFL Cup if they’re signed in time? Or is the squad for that already set?
Mkhitaryan and his agent can promtly fuck off.
I may be a complete arsehole but part of me wants us to cancel it last minute again and see the fallout. How It affect Mourinho and Sanchez.
It is not ideal but Sanchez will hit a wall sooner or later. Its a shame theyre not going to the world cup, he might be effective next year. But soon he will hit a wall and if he cant adapt he will be out quicker that Mourinho.
What a lovely unbalanced team wenger has got. Is there any thought were all these players will play…i mean we haven’t got one decent holding midfield player and about 4 number 10s…
Well I must say, I have seen many players leave the club and felt much worse than I do about this transfer.
Can I add that Adebayor is a horrible cunt!
Mkhitaryan can be a very good player for us if he comes in with the right attitude and not sulking because he was forced to leave United. Will be interesting to see how Wenger decides to deploy him along with Ozil and possibly Auba if we get him. We will have a versatile and talented attack if all four are out there, but I do worry about the defensive work rate of that group.
Hopefully he’ll want to show MaureenO how much of a mistake he made getting rid of him…
At this stage, I really couldn’t give a monkeys. There’s very clearly no plan. We’re a reactive club now…NOT proactive. Shambles on the pitch & off, & a manager that keeps touting how long he has been in the game.
So that is Sanchez, Coquelin and Walcott.
Sorry if I completely lose my faith in Arsenal.
I won’t worry about losing faith in Wenger because I haven’t had any for 15 years.
I just want this season over as soon as possible and for him to do the honourable thing and leave…
What a shambles.
Any one here could have handled this better than Wenger.
Any one…
To be fair, he did win the league unbeaten 14 years ago.
Agreed…but to be fsir on being fair, that was 14 years ago (commendabled that it still is). We’re slipping backwards & we all know it, including our silent owner & equally silent board.
Given the high degree of incompetence at Arsenal.
What would the fans reaction be if a deal was not struck regarding Sanchez and we did not sign any players this month?
Would that spell the end of the current manager?
I ask this because Arsenal’s record in signing players is pretty pathetic…
“How we use Mkhitaryan and where exactly he’ll play in a team with Mesut Ozil”
Stick with 3-4-3. Mkhitaryan and Ozil both in behind Lacazette or Aubameyang.
Have to admit.
I don’t care much really.
I want some good news. When it concerns Arsenal its always bad news.
Especially when it concerns Wenger extending his contract…
This is just a BAD DEAL!
Good riddance
I’m just glad Sanchez is gone. Good luck playing for the thundercunts to end all thundercunts, Mourinho!
Welcome Henrikh!
Although I really hate the idea that we’re dealing with Riola, Mkhitaryan is a class act. Maybe not WC but not far off and a lot better than he’s shown (been allowed to show?) at Utd.
De Maria showed that some players just don’t fit with some clubs/managers/places. Hopefully Mkhitaryan will work well with us.
A straight swap is worse than player plus cash. We are getting swindled by raoila… and now that he has a player at our club, I expect more drama and more nonsense.
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