Rio Ferdinand has sniped that Arsenal should be used to losing their best players, amidst the likelihood of Alexis Sanchez’s probable summer departure.
The Chilean has supposedly told his team-mates that he is looking to leave the club this summer when he enters the final year of his current contract.
Juventus, Sevilla, Atletico Madrid, Chelsea and Paris Saint-Germain have been most strongly linked with his capture at the end of the season, and Rio Ferdinand has claimed that Gunners fans should no longer be surprised when their best players ask to leave.
He said: ‘I think we’re at a place where Arsenal football club and Arsenal fans are used to being, where their star player wants to leave for pastures new to win trophies.
‘We’ve seen it with Cesc Fabregas, with [Bacary] Sagna, with Robin van Persie, with [Gael] Clichy with [Samir] Nasri.
‘They were all integral parts of this football club left to go win trophies and we’re here again with Sanchez.’
And Ferdinand does not think it is possible to convince the Chilean to stay.
‘No I don’t,’ he said when asked if Sanchez could remain at the club.
‘He’s someone who’s winning with Chile – he wants to do it with club football and he doesn’t see that happening here.’
Do we really have to accept that we are a selling club, and that we are no longer a top side who can challenge for the big trophies?
Has the big-spending nature of other clubs belittled us?
Who could possibly replace Alexis Sanchez this summer?
Pat J
We are no longer a big club. If you don’t want to pay your players the going market rate you not keep them or attract them. It makes me laugh when I read articles about how Griezman should replace Sanchez. Is anyone really thinking Griezman would come to Arsenal for 180 per week? The market for top players is much much higher now in terms of salary.
Also since it has been so long since we did anything in football most of the young players that start now don’t see Arsenal as a big club or an opportunity to win anything. Arsenal will be right viewed as a stepping stone to a big club. The same will go for the caliber manager we can sign. Any big name manager will ask about budget for rebuilding the squad during his interviews. If Allegri or Simeoni is told he can not pay Sanchez more than 180 per week to keep him he is going to laugh and leave the interview. Only a young manager with no proven track record will accept those limitations.
It is our owner who is the problem, we would not be in this situation with Usmanov as owner.
I agree, but I think we have players who got too much too early on their contracts without justifying half the money received (in some cases). We need to get someone in to work with Gazidas, Gazidas doesn’t know how to rate players properly and Arsene is a communist. If we had someone like D Levy doing this for us well then I think we could afford bigger named players.
It is true that players like Theo and others got paid way too much too early and some even became unsellable because of their wages.
It is also true that we have failed to develop enough our own players. Is it really possible that Ox, Ramsey, Wilshire, Theo etc have not progressed for years?
It seems, not unlike Coq, that Wenger might have stumbled on a better position for OX as a result of having been forced to play him in the middle. But why did Wenger not see that potential despite seeing the player in training every week?
Remember Flamini and Arteta out, Coq about to be sold had to take over and was discovered to be a major upgrade and for two seasons a hero?
In his last season with the club with no new striker signed Wenger moves Sanchez to the center with great success, but again why did it take him that long to realize Sanchez could be a 25-30 goal central striker??
I don’t think Wenger can put players in the right position for them, I don’t think Wenger knows how to pick his best starting 11 and as a result, I think he doesn’t know how to develop them as well as other managers do.
it’s true, that becomes hard when trying to sell the deadwoods coz of their huge salaries
whoever replaces him will also leave.
OOT: ozil has rejected a 200k offer. mass exodus. chombo wants out aswell
This is all too familiar.
He’ll run down his contract, join Man U, or City…win the golden boot and EPL with them. And we won’t replace him with an equally valuable player. And the vicious cycle continues.
I don’t think that will happen. We’d just need to tell Alexis he’s not in our plans so if he wants to sit out the last season well then he’ll literally be sitting it out. Alexis would go nuts with not being on the field of play. I think city have tapped him up, but Pep is like that, even if he doesn’t get his player he is weakening/unsettling a rival club. Every inch counts every quarter taken with these coaches.
Break-on-through That is a really nice thought but you seem to forget who is the owner. Do you honestly believe Kroenke will flush 25-35 million down the toilet by letting Sanchez sit out his final year? Kroenke is in it for the safe money and safe money sells Sanchez at a discount.
Haha we had a vision of imitating barca but to me seems we ended up imitating soton. We lack our own philosophy and wenger is caught in between it all play with youth or buy? Play possession football or play to win? We need a new management from top to bottom i feel. We need to rebuild completely. Wenger doesnt know his philosophy no more and the board are clueless as to what is arsenal football club. Sanchez ill respect him till the very end am not going to buy this bad info pple are trying to show us. Its just to brain wash us and make us turn against him so that when he is sold the board and wenger are not getting any stick. It will get alot worse before it gets better.
We didn’t have to be like that anymore, but they won’t learn or move on from the comfort zone they feel they have. Alexis could have been signed months ago, when things looked better. Arsenal have people working out the best times to offer contracts, for pricing reasons I reckon, that tells me they haven’t a clue what their doing. Alexis, there is no way back now for both sides, we would need to see one party do a complete u-turn and the other side to buy their way out of it. I think with Ozil the only reason he hasn’t accepted yet is to see how much wages we are going to offer Alexis. That’s a problem. Arsenal will try to sweep past the reasons for Alexis leaving, instead they’ll use Ozil staying as a bigger sign of things.