Sarri Opens Door For Chelsea Veteran To Leave With Arsenal Waiting In The Wings

Sarri Opens Door For Chelsea Veteran To Leave With Arsenal Waiting In The Wings

Chelsea manager Maurizio Sarri has hinted that captain Gary Cahill will be free to leave the club in January.

The 32-year-old has been linked with a move to Arsenal in recent days, along with Manchester United’s Eric Bailly.


Speaking about Cahill’s situation ahead of tonight’s Europa League game against Vidi, Sarri said:

“He is in the last year of the contract. He has to decide for a new contract here or another club.”

“For the over 30 [players] the club usually offers only one-year contracts. If he has an offer of three years, he can of course choose something [a transfer away from Chelsea].”

With the England international’s contract running down, a sale next month is looking more and more likely, and with Rob Holding likely to be out for the rest of the season with a knee injury, Arsenal may be keen to recruit a centre-half like Cahill.

Unai Emery currently has three fit centre-halves in Shkodran Mustafi, Sokratis Papastathopoulos and Laurent Koscielny, but with the Frenchman coming back from a long-term injury, options are limited if the
Gunners boss wants to play a back three.

Konstantinos Mavropanos is the club’s only other natural centre-back, but he won’t return to full fitness after a groin injury until later this month.

David Tully

David Tully

David has worked as a football reporter for the last fifteen years. Having started as an intern at Snack Media, he then went on to become a freelancer, working on various different sites. At the start of 2023, he took up his current role as content writer for National World's Football News Network.