Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola this week moved to deny speculation claiming he contacted Arsenal’s Alexis Sanchez over a potential transfer, but is the rumour mill purposely ignoring key information in order to spout their rubbish?
The Gunners forward has been in talks over a new contract since last season, and has so far failed to agree terms over an extension. He has since been switched to a centre-forward role, bringing out the best in our star, and his importance further-more enhanced.
The news sources have all claimed that the Chilean striker is demanding vast amounts of money, with today’s source claiming he wants parity with Manchester United’s Paul Pogba who earns a whopping £290K per-week, but nobody seems to mention the all-important fact that Arsene Wenger could prove central to negotiations.
The French manager is into his final year of his contract, and should be credited with the vast improvement brought out in the Chilean since implementing a new system to accommodate him as a striker.
Why is nobody talking about the fact that Wenger is into his final contract, and could be a HUGE stumbling block when it comes to the negotiations between Mesut Ozil or Alexis Sanchez and our club?
Alexis is the type of player who wants to be playing every minute of every football match, and has a hunger to win. I firmly believe that he would be more interested in winning things than money, and he is certain that he will be able to challenge under Wenger, otherwise he wouldn’t have joined.
Can our club guarantee success after the Frenchman leaves the club? Looking at Manchester United’s dismal years after Alex Ferguson, we cant.
Are the papers continually overlooking these facts in order to create rumours? Could we keep Alexis and Mesut even if Wenger leaves?
Pat J
Actually you know what? it does kinda make sense. Maybe they are just waiting to see who the next manager is going to be (if Wenger leaves of course). Or are just waiting till Wenger sings a new contract himself.
Hope he leaves …
Pat – I think you raise a relevant point about the possible importance, to new contracts for Ozil and Sanchez, of Wenger being here next season or not.
I think the answer is split. I don’t think it makes much of a difference to Sanchez whether Wenger stays or not. Like you say, Sanchez is fiercely ambitious and Wenger is simply not fiercely ambitious. If anything Wenger is fiercely cautious. Sanchez will have noticed this if he looks at what Wenger has done in the transfer market since he arrived and if he compares the story he was sold by Wenger before he signed for us and Wenger’s behavior after.
So, if cautious Wenger offers Sanchez 200,000 per week before tax, Sanchez will be gone, even if Wenger stays. Sanchez knows he is worth more than that and at 27, there will be other more ambitious clubs (City?, Real – Talk of Benzema on the way out and Ronlado getting old-?, Juve?, Bayern? -Robben and Ribery are too old – , Inter – Have a wealthy new owner and need to rebuild -), who would be more than happy to pay him more than 200,000 a week. He is or will be one of the best players in the world if you consider the age-related decline of some of his peers (Ibra, Ronaldo, Messi) and 200k a week is not in line with that. Arsenal would be lucky to keep him at 250k a week IMO.
For Ozil I think this is different. He is being nurtured, protected and appreciated by Wenger. He likes the lack of pressure that would come with staying compared to playing for a Man U, Real, Barca etc. His game is less obvious and fans are often divided on his contribution, despite his genius. Wenger staying could be important to him.
At the moment, though, I don’t expect either player to stay because I think Wenger will be in charge of the negotiations and is unlikely willing to pay these guys what they are worth out of fear of upsetting his wage structure.
This would be short sided IMO. It seems Wenger gambles too early on overpaying for players like Theo and Ramsey, who had not proven consistency at their level when they got handed big salaries, and have not really earned their salary since their big pay rises, (although Theo is playing much more like his salary this year). And too cautious on paying players who have proven the ability to maintain their level.
If it were up to me, we pay Ozil and Sanchez whatever they want. We will not pay the massive transfer money required to replace these two players. It would possibly cost over 100 million to get two compatible players, if they even want to come to Arsenal. Much less expensive to give them they pay raise they deserve.
I agree with most of what you said except for the part where you stated that Wenger will refuse to pay these guys what they worth.
Wenger may be stubborn but he is no fool, it is obvious to everyone what the consequences are if we refuse to pay them what they worth and they end up leaving. This does not make financial sense, Wenger knows he need to spend much much more to replace them but the most important issue of all is our stature as a big club. Letting them go will threaten our stature as a big club, as much as I hate to say it but we are not Man Utd, they can sell their Ronaldo and still maintain the stature because of how successful they are. If we sell our own Ronaldo it will be hard to convince people of our big ambitions and this time we cannot use the stadium excuse.
I agree with u completely. If we don’t want to risk upsetting the wage structure why don’t we sell
1.ramsey
2.elneny
3.chambers
4.mert
5.jenkinson
After all we can do without these guys
@theo
I see you haven’t thought that out much. Getting rid of 5 players would mean needing to bring in 5 more quality players. Who would also want to be paid their worth…
@liang – following your logic or reasoning, you are suggesting Wenger will manage to sign both Sanchez and Ozil to new contracts.
Question to you: What would you guess would be the weekly wage Sanchez will sign for?
(ps I would be a happy man if we renew both these contracts (Ozil, Sanchez) before the transfer window opens in order to avoid a long summer with much negative speculation about out club)
Why don’t Arsenal just pay Ozil and Sanchez a lumps sum and call it a new signing on fee their agents will be haPpy and the players and keep their wages 200K PW
Well, who knows what motivates players to sign or stay but I believe that big money does play a dominant part in it all. Sanchez and Ozil have become even bigger stars since their move to Arsenal. Ozil never used to score goals but now Wenger has brought that out of him. Sanchez was a side show to Messi. Today he is the main man in Arsenal and is banging in hat tricks. Where exactly do they go from here? If Ozil returns to Madrid, he goes back to being under Ronaldo’s shadow. The same goes to Sanchez.
They know this so for me, it is all about money. We have signed some top quality players in Mustafi, Xhaka and Perez. So arsenal cannot be accused of not showing ambition. Big players have signed for clubs without champions league because of the money. At the end of the day, this is all about money. Mesut and Alexis cannot accuse our club of lacking ambition. And if it is Champion’s league that they want, nobody guarantees that like Wenger. He has never in his career failed to qualify for it. When they are done playing hardball, I hope they come to their senses and sign. 200k per week is a ton of cash. If they want to be wiping their butts with pound notes, they will still have a lot left even after that. They are loved in Arsenal, encouraged even when they are not playing well and the team is built around them to maximize their talent and value. It doesn’t get better that that. Not even mourinho can guarantee them a trophy or champions league qualification.
Pay them what they want so we can show CHELSKI, UTDs and PUDS we can keep our stars but Also get draxler ( 23 years old ) for 25 millions in January and we can really go all the way. OG is 30 so we can swap him around with Alexis and Lucas and we need to plan ahead for the future. Come on Arsene go and Get him.
Let me get this straight. Sanchez and Ozil want to win things and will only sign if wenger is still at Arsenal? Wenger hasn’t been a winner since 2004.