Alexis Sánchez’s return for pre-season training at Arsenal has been cast into doubt as the Chile forward says he is suffering from flu. The 28-year-old is out of the country and his representatives have been in touch with the club to say he has been laid low by the virus.
Sánchez uploaded a photograph of himself to his Instagram account on Friday in which he looked forlorn, his bottom lip protruding for effect. He captioned it with the words “Enfermo” and “Sick”. Although he was indoors, Sánchez wore a scarf.
Arsène Wenger had said on Thursday that Sánchez would report for the beginning of his pre-season work on Sunday – the day Arsenal play Sevilla in the Emirates Cup – after being granted extended leave following his involvement with Chile at the Confederations Cup.
But Sánchez’s future has been one of the sagas of the summer and, as he has been pushing for a move away from Arsenal, not everyone will take his personal medical bulletin entirely at face value. It would be a worrying sign if he were not to report on Sunday or not to have returned to England by then.
Sánchez wants to leave Arsenal and join Manchester City. A clutch of other high-profile clubs are interested in him, including Paris Saint-Germain, but he favours a move to City and a reunion with Pep Guardiola, under whom he worked at Barcelona.
Sánchez has one year to run on his contract and he has shown no inclination to sign another one, despite the club indicating his weekly wage would be increased to £275,000. He could earn more elsewhere and he has also said he wants Champions League football, which Arsenal cannot offer him this season.
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Arsenal’s stance remains categoric: Sánchez is not for sale, either to a Premier League rival or one in mainland Europe. They have done the sums and concluded they would have a better chance of getting back into the Champions League – and reacquainting themselves with the £40m-a-year revenue stream that the competition brings – with Sánchez in the team.
Therefore, they believe it would be a bad idea to sell him for £40m-£50m, even if it meant losing him as a free agent next summer. There are a raft of other reasons, in their view, to make a stand and hold him to the terms of his £130,000-a-week contract.
The situation could change if City, or another interested club, made a wildly inflated offer – say, of £70m – or if Sánchez were to say his head and heart were no longer in it at the Emirates Stadium. Then again, Arsenal are convinced that if Sánchez did not get his move, he would refocus on 1 September, after the transfer deadline, because of his innate fighting spirit.
One of the problems for Arsenal is that a replacement for Sánchez would be difficult to find and hugely expensive. They want Monaco’s left-sided attacker Thomas Lemar, for example, but the French club have indicated that he would cost £80m.
However, Arsenal believe that there is a deal to be done this summer for the player who has five France caps and they have doggedly pursued one. They have had a number of offers for the 21-year-old turned down, with the most recent one this week being worth €50m (£44.7m). Arsenal believe that Monaco are ready to crack and they are primed to bid once again in the hope of closing the deal.
Deportivo submit offer for Lucas Pérez
Lucas Pérez could be edging closer to the Arsenal exit door after his agent claimed his former club Deportivo La Coruña have tabled a bid for the forward.
The 28-year-old moved to the Emirates Stadium from Spain last August for a fee reported to be in the region of £17m. However, Pérez has found his chances severely limited, starting only twice in the Premier League and making nine starts in total.
The former Dynamo Kyiv frontman suffered a thigh injury in March but even when he returned to full fitness he failed to make a single match-day squad, before being named as an unused substitute for the FA Cup final win over Chelsea. That means his last appearance came off the bench in the sixth-round FA Cup win over non-league Lincoln on 11 March.
Pérez was expected to leave this summer even before the arrival of club-record signing Alexandre Lacazette, who also took the No9 jersey from the Spaniard. Now Pérez’s agent, Rodrigo Fernandez Lovelle, has said that Deportivo have made an offer to take his client back to the Riazor less than 12 months after his departure, as the uncapped striker targets an international call-up.
“I’m here to see the Emirates Cup and to be with Lucas,” Lovelle said of his arrival in London. “We have talked to everyone. Arsenal know we want to go, that there are no opportunities here, and within a year there is a World Cup. Would you not be angry and sad and upset if you had your squad number taken without being asked?”
The offer from Deportivo is believed to be worth more than the reported €9m (£8.1m) that La Liga rivals Sevilla paid Manchester City for Nolito, with Lovelle insisting Pérez was offered plenty more play-time after signing in 2016.
“Deportivo made an offer a week ago. It is a permanent deal and worth more than Nolito’s move to Sevilla,” he said.
“Of course [he was told he would play more]. Lucas signed for Arsenal and was the happiest person in the world and with all of his dreams to fulfil. We have seen that every time he played he did well but after every time he got fewer and fewer opportunities.” PA