After a whole summer of Arsene Wenger categorically saying that Arsenal will not be selling Alexis Sanchez or the other contract rebels even if they refused to sign new contracts, Le Prof has finally revealed that the final decision on any sale is in the hands of the Arsenal Board.
Wenger was asked for the umpteenth time if Alexis would be staying, but this time he gave a different answer. “You cannot rule anything out,” the Frenchman said. “For me, you have a sporting decision and the sport decision is easy: You keep him until the last day of his contract. I don’t consider players’ contractual situation to decide who plays.
“Then you have a compromise to find if you can afford to do it because you lose a lot of money and at the end of the day my decision, which is purely sporting, is easy to make. I want him to stay.
“After that there is, of course, a lot of money involved as well and the club needs to make a financial sacrifice.
“Who has the final say? I have always been followed by the board, but the final say belongs to the board.
“It’s a financial sacrifice for the club and sometimes you have to calculate what you can afford and what you can’t afford.”
I fully expect Arsenal to squeeze £60m out of Man City for Sanchez, and up to £40m for the Ox, wherever he goes. Which team in the world (excepting PSG) can afford to ‘sacrifice’ such an enormous sum of money in one summer? The club have built a reputation over many years of being prudent with their financial decisions, so how on Earth can anyone believe that the Board will sanction a £100m loss to their budget by not selling two players that clearly do not want to play under Wenger any more, when they could invest that money in other players that actually want to play for us?
Mmybe there are some Arsenal fans that think the Arsenal Board are in the habit of turning down massive cheques? But for me it is a no-brainer. Alexis and the Ox are definitely going to be sold.
Darren N