Mourinho closes in on Alexis Sanchez deal

Jose Mourinho arrived at Manchester United’s training ground on Wednesday morning as he closes in on adding Alexis Sanchez to his squad.

Mourinho was driven into the club’s Aon Training Complex as negotiations continue with Arsenal over their £35million-rated wantaway Chilean Sanchez.

While Mourinho who looks to bolster his striking options, one forward who was present for Wednesday’s session was Anthony Martial.

Martial, who started and scored during Monday night’s 3-0 win over Stoke, was driven into training.

Marcus Rashford, who came on in place of Martial, who gave a peace sign as he drove into the Carrington base.

Juan Mata, Scott McTominay, Daley Blind and Sergio Romero were also spotted arriving for training as was Cameron Borthwick-Jackson – who is back after his loan spell from Leeds United.

Those aforementioned players could be greeting a new team-mate this month, if Mourinho has his way.

Arsenal want a £35m fee for Sanchez who will earn £350,000-a-week at United in addition to a £20m signing-on fee and £15m payment to his agent Fernando Felicevich.

This is a figure that the Red Devils are prepared to accept after beating Manchester City in the race to sign the 29-year-old.

However, the arrival of Sanchez is likely to see the departure of Henrikh Mkhitaryan – who Arsenal are keen on.

The Armenia international is under contract at Old Trafford until 2020 but his agent Mino Raiola insisted that he will either leave on his own terms or stall and jeopardise the swap deal with Sanchez.

Yet it’s understood that Mkhitaryan accepts he has no future at United and is now looking to negotiate an increase on his £140,000-a-week contract when he moves.

United want to recoup as much as possible by driving up the price for Mkhitaryan who cost £26m when he moved from Borussia Dortmund in the summer of 2016.

The 28-year-old was left out of United’s squad for the win over Stoke on Monday night with Jose Mourinho admitting that he had taken the decision because of speculation over Mkhitaryan’s future.