Arsenal will spend £70m to replace ‘sacrificed’ Sanchez

Sanchez could leave Arsenal on a free next summer.

Arsene Wenger admits Arsenal are paying a ‘huge price’ in keeping hold of Alexis Sanchez and allowing him to leave on a free next summer.

Sanchez was the subject of a £60m deadline day bid from Manchester City, but Wenger held his ground and turned down the offer after failing to land Monaco’s Thomas Lemar.

The Gunners offered a colossal £92m for Lemar, which was accepted by the French champions, but Arsenal pulled out of the deal as they believed they did not have enough time to finalise the move and subsequently blocked Sanchez’s City transfer.

‘You take Sanchez into the final year of your contract, you sacrifice £60m-£70m income and then at the end of the season you will have to buy somebody for that amount of money,’ said Wenger in an interview with ‘beIN Sports’. ‘So it has a huge price. So at some stage you have to make a decision you have to sacrifice one or two [players].’

Wenger has confirmed that Arsenal will try again for Lemar, but it is unclear whether he will move to a club without Champions League football.

The Gunners boss also spoke about players entering the final year of their contracts, something he has been criticised for with Sanchez’s and Mesut Ozil’s Emirates deals expiring next summer, and the transfer market’s hyper-inflation.

‘We have today 107 players in England who go into the final year of their contract,’ Wenger added.

‘It’s a complete rotation and change in the way people see their careers for two reasons.

‘One, all the players expect higher wages because they anticipate inflation; [and two] because the transfer market has gone up so much but clubs do not want to pay so high prices on transfers for players who are good players but will not change their life.

‘The amount of money is completely disconnected to reality and the truth. I give you one example: no matter how well you work as a football coach, Dembele last year was €15m, this year €150m. No matter how well you work on the football pitch you cannot make a player go from €15m to €150m.

‘But the calculation between investment and what you can get back has gone. It’s just: can you afford to buy or not?’