Despite never moving during the summer transfer window, Alexis Sanchez’s future at Arsenal is far from sorted, and with the Chile international’s contract running out at the end of the season, the rumours keep coming in.
A week or so ago, El Mercurio claimed Paris Saint-Germain were prepared to offer the Gunners’ star a €10m signing bonus to convince him to sign for them in June, and now there’s more.
Le Parisien on Thursday claim the Ligue 1 side are already working on the next two transfer windows, which includes, in their plans, the arrival of Alexis Sanchez.
However, as you well know, the French club aren’t the only ones after the Chilean forward, and Manchester City could still have a big say in all this, especially since the Parisian newspaper claim Arsenal would be prepared to sell their attacker in January in order to recoup some money.
While this seems rather unlikely, considering that if they purely wanted money, they would have sold him on transfer deadline day, we’ll play along with it for now.
If that is indeed the case, then Manchester City certainly hold the advantage, mostly due to their financial health.
Le Parisien do say that while Sanchez is ‘seduced’ by the idea of living in Paris, he remains very open to what Pep Guardiola’s side have to say, as they continue to circle around the one that got away.
For Paris Saint-Germain, paying for Sanchez in January would be a difficult feat to pull off considering their vast expenditure on Neymar a few months ago, and their need for a new defensive midfielder, having sold Blaise Matuidi and loaned Grzegorz Krychowiak this summer.
Already under scrutiny for that transfer, chucking even more money around on another star during the 2017-18 season would be far from sensible.
Another reason for this is the €180m they will have to pay Monaco next summer for Kylian Mbappé, having managed to ensure that expenditure only counts from 2018-19 onwards thanks to the famous ‘relegation clause’.
Le Parisien state Paris Saint-Germain’s plan for next year is to pay the hefty fee for the Monaco loanee, bring in Alexis Sanchez on a free and sell Edinson Cavani, who isn’t the best of pals with their new Brazilian superstar and could fetch a tasty sum (Le Parisien reckon around €80m).
Signing the Arsenal star would also Mbappé to move back through the middle rather than play down the right, which is where the Ligue 1 runners-up see him long-term.
Taking all this into account, and with Manchester City’s finances probably in a healthier state than their French counterparts, at least for the next two years or so, if a January Sanchez exit were to take place, it seems the Chile international would simply move north than across the Channel.
Furthermore, the fact the Cityzens tried to sign him on transfer deadline day added to Pep Guardiola admitting the club might need to spend in January suggests there’s enough money left in the bank to pull it off.
Whether it happens or not, however, is an entirely different story.
