Well we certainly weren’t expecting this.
It was seen as a formality. Alexis Sanchez would leave Arsenal for a heavily discounted rate to sign for Manchester City this month. Due to the fact that he’d be available on a free at the end of the season, City would be getting a player worth around £150m in the current market, for around £25m. And Alexis would get to team up with former boss Pep Guardiola.
So prolonged and determined was City’s interest – they nearly signed him in the summer – that even Arsenal supporters had resigned themselves to the sale. But now, all that has been turned on its head with the dramatic news that none other than Manchester United have now entered the race to the sign the mercurial Chilean at the eleventh hour.
And this is not a rumour from a dodgy website or tenuous Twitter parody account. The famed transfer authority Gianluca Di Marzio has confirmed the startling development. Di Marzio is respected as probably the most reliable source for such stories, and rarely puts his name to concrete statements without the first-hand information to back it up.
On Thursday afternoon he has confirmed that United are currently in contact with the relevant contacts to push through a dramatic last minute transfer – from under the noses of their city rivals. All we can say is watch this space. What a dramatic turn of events this would be.
…#United in contact for #Sanchez in the last hours 😱@SkySport @SkySportNewsHD
— Gianluca Di Marzio (@DiMarzio) January 11, 2018
