Per Mertesacker says that Alexis Sanchez deserves a rest after what was an intense season for him, and that he needs time to make up his mind about his Arsenal future.
Overnight reports from Chile seem to indicate that the 28 year old would like to play Champions League football next season, but also that he’s aware Arsenal will be the ones who make the ultimate decision.
The club captain believes that last year’s top scorer has qualities that will be difficult to replace, but that he should be left alone for now,
“He needs a break now,” he said. “He needs to relax. He has done a lot for us. He played almost every game last season and then the Confederations Cup.
“You need to leave him alone to make up his mind what he wants to do. It’s his decision. If he feels good, comfortable, he can play with freedom.
“He has his qualities, you cannot find those everywhere. He has shown them and we have embraced him.”
Sanchez will return to Arsenal after the friendlies against Bayern Munich and Chelsea in China next week, at which point there are expected to be further talks between the club and his representatives.
I still love the adoration of Sanchez to the BFG in that pic!
Hopefully Per can use that to our advantage in getting him to stay
He’s looking at the BFG like a Father Rottweiler ???
Big Fuckin German shepard him back to us perty pleeeeze.
He put his “paw” over BFGs shoulder: a sign of dominion.
ok totally unrelated to sanchez,but mancity spending like 150million probably on transfers and probably sanchez wont be cheap,so isn’t Ffs or epl regulations have some rules about incoming and outgoing expenses…Also for so much talks abt pep being the best coach!! i mean all he does is either go to the best team or buys player who are at top 10 in their positions…in my opinion jurgen klopp or leonard jardim are much better coach than he will ever be..for few years i had this hatred for cheski but with conte there now it seems i am kinda going to… Read more »
Don’t forget to hate Man U mate!
And Tottenham !!
Barca, Chelsea, Bayern … All cunts
But this is a great point – alongside the huge outgoings on transfer fees, they’d have a gigantic and growing wage bill. How on earth do they manage to stay on the right side of financial fair play?
Greasing the right palms presumably
With oil dripping off their fat wads of cash
At this point I honestly feel Arsenal and Wenger needs to be ruthless with this Alexis situation. We need to show we are a big club. What has happened with other players in the past is gone and we are changed in our approach to these contractual issues.My opinion, he should be allowed to run out his contract, we engage his reps by Oct-Nov hoping we look good for UCL qualification then.Afterall he was part of the team that couldnt qualify us for UCL, first time in over 20yrs. Manchester City has no chance of winning the UCL in a… Read more »
The thing is, contrary to popular belief, a big club would probably just let him go and then sign another world class player. The fact that we can’t do that says it all
To be fair that is probably what we should do
Not sure I agree that we can’t … Maybe not the fabled ‘world class’ but there aren’t too many of them going around …
It’s what we should do but it’s not what we’re going to do, and it’s certainly not what we’ve done before. I mean, if we can do it, why don’t we?
Chelsea did exactly that to Costa.
Right, and so far have failed to find any kind of replacement. Lost Lukaku to Man United–where, it seems to me, he is unlikely to be an immediate improvement on Ibrahimovic. You can count the “world-class” strikers, other than those at Real and Barca, on one hand: Lewandowski, Griezmann, Arguero, Alexis, maybe Higuain, and probably a couple in the near future: Mbappe and Gabriel Jesus.
Have to give these things time. I’d be shocked if Chelsea didn’t replace Costa with a world class striker by the end of the window. Delighted, but shocked
I don’t doubt Chelsea will find someone about as good as Costa. My point is that they are unlikely to find someone better because there aren’t many of them (maybe I should have added Aubameyang to my short list). Man United did not get better by replacing Ibra with Lukaku (though they had no choice because of his injury). Chelsea is unlikely to get better with Costa’s replacement. And it is hard to see who would make us stronger than keeping Alexis.
Even the Dutch Skunk delivered on UCL before selling out! Agree 100% that Sanchez should stay and then, if we win or are winning the League, we should talk contract extension. Until then, balls to the wall, he’s our player!
(An earlier extension is fine by me … I’m talking our bottom line.)
And we have done a lot for him too !..he was a bit part player at Barca who was going to lose his place on the bench with Neymar coming…he was earning £80pkw and we increased his pay to £130kpw.. We put him firmly on the world stage …no one forced him to sign the contract ..he has a contract and all we ask is he honours it..no citeh no bayern no juve I hope he doesn’t go to a rival after his contract expires but we have no right to ask him not to.. Keep Alexis and we can… Read more »
We do have a right to ask him, what I mean to say is we can ask…
The single down vote you have seems to have come from Sanchez’s agent.
Second down vote from Alexis.
Very true.
he wasn’t half the player he is now when he left Barca.
Much of the development into what he is today is bc we afforded him the space to develop where he was very restricted at Barca.
Which is why there is still an allure to come over to Arsenal and Wenger still has a reputation developing both younger but also more mature players. Similarly to some extent, Ozil. He has also improved over the years albeit of course some of it may be natural progression with experience.
The lad wants to win the champions league and that’s clearly not gonna happen at arsenal anytime soon.
I see no reason for all the hatred. He’ll always give hundred percent when he plays and that’s enough.
I don’t hate him but City have never come close to winning the Champions League so I don’t understand his reasoning … Chelsea spent stupid amounts of money and they’ve only done it once. Then they only did it through a lot of defending and a big slice of luck. PSG have never won it either, and we are about at their level based on our games last season. Bayern would be his best bet, and even Bayern offer no guarantees. If he wants to win the UCL he takes lower wages and goes there. Barca and Real already have… Read more »
It may not be City. That’s just what is being reported.
We are likely waiting on a couple of teams to enter market for Alexis which is why the delay.
None of the English teams will challenge this year, and the others won’t pay at near our level. We need to be in UCL next year, in a better position to win UCL than the others, and look at resigning him then.
You know … act like a big club.
woahh…so much downthumbs for stating a fact . its true that city has never been closer to champions league , but pep guardiola as a manager is as close to a champions league contender as anyone . last season was the first time probably he couldnt get his team into semifinal of champions league . sooner or later with loads of money being thrown every year they will come close to it . but my opinion is that realistically he knows he is close to 30 and he wont win it if he is not a barca or madrid player… Read more »
This whole thing reminds me of the series of events which led up to me being dumped by my first ever girlfriend. She just went really quiet after we came back from holidays, kinda avoided me a bit and wouldn’t look me in the eye when we talked. So I asked her friends who told me she just needs a bit of space. So I gave her some space and a few days later she unceremoniously dumps me in the cafeteria and almost immediately goes out with Simon Jarrod. Ah, good memories…
Is that you Pete? 🙂
Did you do a lot of diarrheas on your vacation? What did you do?!?!
Oh wells. Looks like his choice is to leave. I guess we gotta accept it if it does come down to this. Just make sure the $ is re-invested back into getting lemar.just pls DO NOT not re-invest the $.
Why can’t we keep him and sign Lemar too?…he has a contract lets stop acting like Pussies for once!..
Apparently bale is possibly on the way out at real Madrid if they get mbappe, I think we should try and sign him, he’s pretty good, and can you imagine spurs fans reaction, all worked out pretty well with sol Campbell
It would be worth it just for the Spurs fan reaction
I’m not sure what makes him think he has more chance of winning the UCL with City than us … Barca and Real have it monopolised, Bayern and others win it occasionally …
If we keep hold of him, there is a fair chance City will fuck up this season which might just change his opinion.
Am less than convinced that Guardiola is the Messiah he is supposed to be …
I agree if Pep doesn’t win the EPL this season he will be gone…and he knows it…he is desperate to win the EPL thats why he wants Sanchez..
Why are we not as desperate as Pep thats my worry!..
I don’t know Wenger is in a not too dissimilar position
I’m not sure its City.
The reason its dragged out is likely bc we are waiting on the likes of PSG or Inter to clear their decks and make a decision.
The same people talking Guardiola down are always the ones that would hype him to death if they thought he’d sign for us.
I might have but he didn’t exactly set the league on fire last season … Also there is the fact that he has only ever managed to win things when his team is much better than everybody else’s
Claudio Bravo and John Stones spring to mind
I say keep him this year even if he doesn’t sign an extension, and if all goes as well as we hope, we make the top 4 again, and maybe even win the BPL, then he won’t have an excuse to leave us after his contract expires next year. After all, our chances of being at least in the top 4 are excellent, and with the added players we’ve signed, and Alexis still on the team, the team will definitely be improved. What excuse would he have for leaving us at that point. It’s somewhat of a gamble, but it… Read more »
Alexis reminded to our players what it looks like to play with passion and desire, something our team was missing lately. So I can only hope we will keep him… AFC Forever!!!
Darkness …i see darkness 🙂
If that doesn’t sound like a testimonial from the BFG…
You can’t really begrudge Alexis. He tried hard to dig us out but we dug our own grave not getting into CL. The issue in my opinion last season was in deep midfield. Granit was bedding in, had to get to some semblance of balance with either Coquelin or Ramsey. In the end the 3-4-3 in many ways was a response to the shortfall in midfield caused by the reliance on Santi to get fit. I fear we may again compromise and make the same error without addressing midfield depth. Beyond Ramsey- Granit – Coquelin, the rest are half options.… Read more »