Arsène Wenger has outlined his determination to keep Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain at Arsenal, in the face of interest from Chelsea, but the manager admitted his move for Monaco’s Thomas Lemar is “dead”.
Wenger did not deny that Chelsea had made a bid, valued at £35m, for Oxlade-Chamberlain and, with the player in the final year of his contract and having shown little inclination to sign a new one, it is clear that Arsenal’s position is delicate. However, Wenger believes Oxlade-Chamberlain can become a symbol for the club and he intends to repeat his sales pitch when he sits down for talks with the midfielder’s representatives.
“In all the conversations that I have had, I say that I want him to stay and be one of the big players of the future of this club,” Wenger said. “He is one of the players this team has to be built around in the future. Personally, I want him to commit to the club and be one of the carriers of the values of our team.
“I want to keep my best players. I only have one target – to keep everybody on board. I think we invested a lot of time, confidence and money on players like Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, who we bought at a young age. For me, they have a responsibility for the future of this club because Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain will be one of the big English players in the coming years. I, personally, am highly determined to keep him here at the club and I hope he will commit.”
Wenger’s most pressing target is to trim the number of senior players in his squad. At present, he has 28, three above the Premier League limit, meaning that if he wants to make one more signing before the transfer deadline next Thursday night he has to move on four players.
He has finally admitted defeat over Lemar, the Monaco winger whom Arsenal were confident of getting at the end of July, despite having had three bids turned down, the highest worth €50m (£44.7m). Monaco have refused to budge from their stance that it would take at least £80m to prise him away. In other words, he is not for sale.
“It’s dead because Monaco have closed the door,” Wenger said. “They are still on cases like Mbappé and Fabinho [in terms of selling them]. They’ve already lost Mendy, Bernardo Silva and Bakayoko, so Monaco is at a stage where they have closed the door. Is it a frustration? We have the numbers and we have the quality to deal with that.
“We are on alert in the last seven days [of the window]. It will depend on how many players go to see if we can bring one more in. Everybody gets agitated and phones ring more often than before. Sometimes, you have to share the work on the final day because you have some cases going out and some coming in. The last two days are always very hectic.”
Wenger reported that Alexis Sánchez – who remains a target for Manchester City – had trained well after an abdominal strain and would play his first football of the season at Liverpool on Sunday, either as a substitute or from the start. After the game, Sánchez will travel to Chile for his country’s vital World Cup qualifiers against Paraguay and Bolivia. The Paraguay tie in Santiago takes place on transfer deadline night. Wenger maintains that Sánchez, whose contract expires next summer, will still be an Arsenal player on 1 September.
“Alexis works very hard, is focused and gives absolutely everything,” Wenger said. “He loves to play so much that it is sometimes difficult to stop him but he looks absolutely ready [for Liverpool]. He has always been focused on his job and I don’t think he is too disturbed by all the [external] noises that happen. Players at that level are used to it now, some deal better with it than others, but I don’t think he is too bothered by that.”