Alexis Sanchez agrees contract with Manchester United; Arsenal wait on Mkhitaryan

Your daily Alexis Sanchez news has a new twist today, with the soon-to-be ex-Arsenal forward agreeing to a completely absurd and eye-watering £14 million a year deal after taxes with Manchester United. Meanwhile, on the other end of the deal, Henrikh Mkhitaryan’s super-agent Mino Raiola is telling the world that he’s advising his client to hold off on any deal with Arsenal this month until it’s “...what is best for him.”

The two people holding all the cards at the moment in this deal is Mkhitaryan and Raiola. As it stands now, Mkhitaryan has two-and-a-half-years left on his contract with United, which is why news like this article from The Guardian that explains how United might do the deal for Alexis without including Mkhitaryan in it is starting to crop up. Why else would the player want to move to a team that’s looking increasingly likely to miss Champions League football (and potentially European football, altogether) this late in his career? Unless, of course, he has an agent like Raiola and the two of them sense their positioning within this transfer madness.

We’ve seen this story turn quite sharply over the past few days, so it stands to reason that there will be another wrinkle, another twist by the end of the day. We’ll try our best to keep up, but as it stands now it’s looking like there’s a showdown to be had between Mkhitaryan, Raiola, and the two clubs involved in trying to sort out Alexis’s future.