With the season coming to an end and Arsenal looking highly unlikely to finish in the top-four, there has been a lot of speculation about the futures of the Gunners’ star players and even manager Arsene Wenger. One of the star players in question is top-scorer Alexis Sanchez, who is understood to be on the way out but a report from the Evening Standard is now claiming that the player will be offered a mammoth £300,000 a week contract to stay in North London.
Reports in Chile emerged last week that Sanchez is keen on forcing his way out in the summer after yet another disappointing campaign with Arsenal, but the story from the Standard claims that the player is yet to make up his mind regarding the issue. The story further claims that the player is yet to respond to the offer and will wait till the summer to make a decision, perhaps to see where the club finish.
If the reports are indeed true, it would make Alexis the highest-paid player in the Premier League, moving the Chilean ahead of Manchester United’s Paul Pogba, who is on a £290,000 a week contract at Old Trafford. Surely, Alexis is worth the investment and deserves to be amongst English football’s highest-paid stars.
But personally, I find it very hard to believe that the Arsenal board, infamous for penny-pinching, would be willing to offer a single player such a lucrative offer. Another complication is that if Sanchez were to be paid £300,000 a week, Arsenal’s other star player, Mesut Ozil, who will also be out of contract next summer, will expect a similar pay-hike, and it is difficult to see the board forking out a whopping £550-600,000 a week for just two players.
But then again, with the club looking at the very real possibility of missing out on Champions League football for the first time in Wenger’s tenure and all the financial losses that come with it, perhaps the club are finally willing to loosen the monetary shackles. But if Alexis is to stay, money is just a part of the problem. A top-four finish and a summer splurge on reinforcements, along with the bumper contract, may convince him though.