The transfer of Alexis Sanchez has been a frustrating and complicated saga but it appears that Manchester United and Jose Mourinho have won the ultimate game of poker.
French TV journalist Thibaud Vezirian has claimed that Sanchez’s move to Manchester United is a done deal with Mkhitaryan joining in thee opposite direction.
Here is the tweet:
🇦🇲 Le transfert de @HenrikhMkh à @Arsenal, c'est fait ! Alexis Sanchez file à @ManUtd ⚽
— T.V. (@ThibaudVezirian) January 16, 2018
The tweet translates to “The transfer of @HenrikhMkh to @Arsenal, it’s done! Alexis Sanchez go to @ManUtd.”
Other sources including BBC and Express have also run stories claiming that the £130,000-a-week star is more or less done. The Two Manchester clubs were locked in a battle for the services of the football mercenary from Chile, who it appears, was just waiting for the right offer regardless of any verbal agreement he may have had with City.
It seems that all forms of decency have now left the game and even contracts are worthless so perhaps a player should be paid per performance. If that were the case, Arsenal are due money back from the wantaway striker who is about to head out of the Emirates exit door.
Guardiola had been duped by Sanchez into believing that the player was eager to link up with his former Manager. He mistakenly believed that his transfer was a formality when his contract expired and that he would eventually snap him up for free.
Modern football doesn’t work that way if it ever did. It’s a free for all and where big money is concerned, anything goes. It’s not like City didn’t have a distinct advantage in this sorry affair and all it would have taken was one big financial push to secure the striker’s services.
Yet Pep refused to meet Arsenal’s valuation of the player on the assumption that the deal was done and dusted but Mourinho blew that notion away by waiting for Arsenal to name their price and his last-minute bid was a game changer.
I recently said in a blog that although Wenger had made his position clear and that Sanchez was not leaving at any price, the Arsenal board would not let him go without recouping some or all their initial outlay. Mourinho is shrewd enough to know that everything in a transfer window is about timing and that everyone has their price.
Sanchez may well have given his word to Guardiola but that wasn’t worth the breath he promised it with. Arsenal for their part have ensured they can find a decent replacement with the fee, thought to be around £35 Million but they have handled the whole situation in a truly amateurish way.
The contract saga went on for far too long and they should have sold him in the summer to avoid dressing room disharmony and periods of sulking and petulance. The player may be a class act but his actions have been second rate. He will be perceived as a money grabber, a gun for hire to the highest bidder.
Thanks Alexis for the good times but they will be forgotten soon enough and the only thing that fans will remember is how they were shortchanged on the pitch by a player who’s only concern was himself.
