It was supposed to be one of the most straightforward transfers in the Premiership but now it is becoming one of the most complicated. Alexis Sanchez already agreed on personal terms with Manchester City last summer, Arsenal already agreed on the transfer fee, all that was left was to get a replacement. Thomas Lemar of Monaco didn’t want to come to Arsenal for a lot of reasons but the one we were told was that he did not want to play for a club that is not in the Champions’ League, so the deal fell through and Sanchez stayed at the Emirates.
To all involved, and, indeed to the entire football world, this was just minor setback, all will be sorted out in January or summer next year when Sanchez will be reunited with Pep Guardiola, his main man from their Barcelona days. So when the January transfer window opened, everyone thought it was a matter of when and not if Alexis will exit the Emirates and move in into the Etihad.
However, it turned out the ever dodgy Jose Mourinho, always looking for ways to put one over his rivals and gain psychological advantage, had other plans. He had been snooping, just like he did against Chelsea for Lukaku, and he discovered that, just like Lukaku, Sanchez’s agent Fernando Felicevich was the key factor in deciding where the Chilean ends up playing and that most importantly, he was willing to listen to offers.
Mourinho convinced Ed Woodward at United to reach out to Felicevich and offer him a deal he could not refuse. The next move was to send a request to Arsenal topping Manchester City’s bid with an extra £15m. Arsenal accepted Manchester United’s offer and went to City with the new rate. The Sheikhs at the Etihad felt this was not right they would not pay £35m in January for a player they will get for free next summer. They went to the agent to let him know that they were willing to wait till next season when Sanchez will be a free agent. That was when they received the shocker that made them withdraw from the bidding entirely. Sanchez’s agent was reported to have told them that not only was his player not willing to wait till July before he leaves Arsenal, the terms have also changed. The way things are now, for City to get Sanchez, they will have to add a few more thousand pounds to the already agreed terms and also, they will have to pay an agent fee.
Manchester City withdrew from the race. Manchester United became the main people in charge now. They offered the player £350k to 400k per week, they offered the agent £5m or £15m, depending on which report you have read, they offered Arsenal £35m, 15m more than City were willing to pay. What then can go wrong?
Well, as an overkill, Manchester United offered out of favour player Henrikh Mkhitaryan to Arsenal as part of the deal that would bring Sanchez to Old Trafford. Arsenal jumped at this believing they were getting a world-class player to replace a world-class player, especially one that was recommended by Sven Mislintat, the Arsenal new head of recruitment who knew Mhki from their days at Borussia Dortmund. They must have felt this would please their long suffering fans.
Manchester United also must have been happy that they were getting a player they needed and dumping a player they don’t need on their rival. All these plans were going seemingly smoothly without anybody putting Mkhitaryan’s ego and self-pride into consideration. Both clubs must have thought to themselves the player would be happy with the arrangement, after all it will give him a chance to be playing regular football again, moreso, hasn’t he already said in 2009 that his favourite club was Arsenal and he would like to play for Wenger one day?
To be fair to him, Mkhi is not actually saying he doesn’t want to play for Arsenal, he, through his agent Carmine “Mino” Raiola is just driving a hard bargain. He knows the deal cannot go through unless he agrees to a move to Arsenal. Mino is also Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s agent and he knows when Alexis Sanchez moves to United, it will affect Zlatan’s chances of playing regular football and may affect his chances of signing a new contract at Old Trafford, so he is using a combination of agent and player powers to get the best deals for his two clients. If Mino is happy, Mkhitaryan will sign for Arsenal the next minute and United will get their man. United and Arsenal have done the hard work, what is now left is for them to work together and make both player and agent happy otherwise this may go to the wire. Sanchez may be forced to stay till July when he goes for free.
If that happens, United may still get Sanchez for free or he may decide to go to City if they are still interested, but the greatest losers will be Arsenal. They will have missed out on a world class player in Mkhitaryan for whom they would not have paid a penny on transfer fee, worse still, they will be left will Alexis Sanchez a player who obviously doesn’t want to stay in the club any day longer than necessary, a player who is already causing division in the dressing room and top of all these, you will still have to pay him his full weekly salary, whether he plays or not. So should not the sensible thing to do be to pay Mkhitaryan the extra £50 thousand he wants and then everyone gets what they want and we all live happily ever after? The question now is since when have Arsenal ever done the sensible thing when it comes to players’ fees? If they had done that with Sanchez in the first instance, he would not have asked for a transfer.
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