Transfer Rumour: Manchester City not prepared to enter a bidding war for Arsenal’s Alexis Sanchez

As rumours begin to heat up around Alexis Sanchez, particularly a surprise bid from Manchester United, Manchester City has dumped cold water on the idea that it might drive up the price of Arsenal’s wantaway. With only months remaining on his contract and the ability to negotiate with new clubs for a summer move on the free, the Blue side of Manchester is standing pat on their reported price. £20m, done and dusted.

Additionally, City feels that Alexis’ wage demands are also too high and look to be playing big dog with both Arsenal and their man over how much their willing to spend on the Chilean striker. They don’t seem to be bothered by the noise coming from their Red neighbours either.

Reports Thursday had Jose Mourinho eager to crash the transfer, offering somewhere in the realm of £25m and perhaps even the forgotten scorpion goal man Henrikh Mkhitaryan. This remains hugely in the world of speculative nonsense that Mourinho won’t dispel, saying it would be unethical to discuss Alexis as a transfer target (first time for everything):

“At the general level what I can say is myself and Manchester United board, owners, we don’t believe a lot in the January market, we don’t believe in sign a player just to sign a player… What we believe really is there are some players in the football world if you have the chance to sign them in January, March or July, you have to try and that’s it.

“But in relation to Alexis Sánchez I don’t say a word. The only word I can say is he is a phenomenal player, apart from that an Arsenal player and I feel I shouldn’t say much more than this.”

A lot of words to say not much at all that should twist the media into knots. The jerk is really good at this game but, again, the seriousness of their potential bid remains in doubt.

It is still believed that Alexis favours a move to Man City to reunite with his old Barcelona coach. While keen to move this month, probably still happy to move in the summer. For his part, Pep Guardiola isn’t saying much either:

“I understand completely this question, I understand you are doing your job, but you know my answer. I am not going [to speak about it]. I’m focused on Liverpool, believe me. Alexis – everyone knows how good he is, but I am not going to answer about Alexis or other players.”

So there you go. All the rumour, no one saying anything.

On the Arsenal side of things, Arsene Wenger remains open to selling Alexis this month so long as a replacement is available. That’s a lot of business for Wenger in January so we’ll believe it when we see it.