Arsene Wenger admits Arsenal are paying a huge price for letting Alexis Sanchez leave the club for free at the end of the season rather than sell him before hand.
Wenger stuck to his word this summer and rejected the advances of Manchester City who attempted to sign the want-away Chilean. However, this is reportedly only due to the fact Arsenal failed in landing Monaco’s Thomas Lemar on deadline day.
Wenger says he believes it will cost the club around £70million in order to replace Sanchez if he leaves the club for free next summer, as well as losing out on any fee they would have gained for the forward.
“You take Sanchez into the final year of your contract, you sacrifice £60-£70million income and then at the end of the season you will have to buy somebody for that amount of money,” said Wenger in an interview with beIN Sports.
“So it has a huge price. So at some stage you have to make a decision you have to sacrifice one or two [players].”
Wenger then discussed how players are allowing their contracts to run down at clubs due to the rise in inflation within football. Players expect higher wages, and clubs do not want to pay the increasing transfer fees. The Frenchman used the example of Dembele going to Barcelona as his case for the astronomical transfer fees.
“We have today 107 players in England who go into the final year of their contract,” said Wenger. “It’s a complete rotation and change in the way people see their careers for two reasons. One, all the players expect higher wages because they anticipate inflation; [and two] because the transfer market has gone up so much but clubs do not want to pay so high prices on transfers for players who are good players but will not change their life.”
“The amount of money is completely disconnected to reality and the truth. I give you one example: no matter how well you work as a football coach, Dembele last year was €15m, this year €150m. No matter how well you work on the football pitch you cannot make a player go from €15m to €150m.”
“But the calculation between investment and what you can get back has gone. It’s just: can you afford to buy or not?”