Sunday Mirror (Northern Ireland)
FREEBIE SANCHEZ
City rule out a January offer for ace Alexis
MANCHESTER CITY will not give Arsenal a penny for Alexis Sanchez.
The Premier League leaders have abandoned plans to make a cut-price £20million bid for the Chilean forward during the January transfer window.
They are ready to take revenge on the Gunners over their decision to scupper a £60million deadline-day deal for the 28-year-old by signing him for nothing
when his contract expires next summer.
Sunday Mirror Sport has learned that City are still angry at the way Arsenal handled negotiations for Sanchez in August.
After saying the player was going nowhere, the Gunners changed tack at the 11th hour when it became clear Sanchez would not sign a new deal and had priced himself out of moves to Paris Saint-Germain and Bayern Munich, by demanding £500,000-a-week.
Arsene Wenger’s attempt to get City to agree to a deal that would see
Raheem Sterling move to the Emirates was rejected.
Then the Londoners accepted a bid of £60m from City just hours before the deadline – only to pull out when they failed with their own £90m mission to replace Sanchez with Monaco’s Thomas Lemar.
Now Arsenal’s decision to force Sanchez and Manchester United target Mesut Ozil to serve the final year of their contracts looks set to cost the cashconscious Gunners a fortune.