5 never-ending transfer sagas we could see in the summer of 2017
It’s that time of the year again. Come the end of the season, football fans will have absolutely nothing to look forward to but two-and-a-half months of news and rumours swirling in the giant melting pot that is the summer transfer window.
Players will come and go while managers will be hired and fired (unless they go by the name Arsene Wenger). Agents will leak details of non-existent deals as scare tactics to coerce clubs into giving players bigger contracts while clubs surreptitiously leak reports of their own so fans renew their season tickets for the upcoming season.
It’s a circus that has takers and will always be so as transfer fees increase almost exponentially with every window. And at the centre of it all are the players that hog the headlines. We look at five players who will be the subject of never-ending transfer sagas this summer.
5) Alexis Sanchez: Arsenal
If Arsenal play their cards right, they could hold on to one of their best signings in recent years. Signed for £35m from Barcelona in 2014, Alexis has been the club’s top goalscorer in two of the last three seasons. He could have easily topped the charts in all three seasons had he not been sidelined with an injury in the 2015/16 campaign.
The club is in dire straits. Once the bastion of stability in club football, the institution that is Arsenal Football Club is now crumbling with the fans in an uproar over the club’s lack of ambition despite promises to compete with Europe’s elite once they were financially secure.
The Chilean forward, one of six nominees for this season’s PFA Player of the Year, could be the first to lead a mass exodus of players who enter the final year of their contract. He has refused to sign a contract extension and has claimed he will only take a decision in the summer.
With Arsenal staring at the probability of missing out on Champions League qualification for the first time in Wenger’s reign, that may be a deciding factor in the 28-year-old’s decision to stay or leave. However, the club’s transfer plans will also have a final say.
If Alexis is unhappy with what he sees, he will surely leave. We’ve seen it all before with Robin van Persie. Bayern Munich and Juventus are interested in securing his services and they have the financial power to pay the transfer fee and lure him with high wages.
And should the Chilean leave, the Gunners will be back to square one – back to being dubbed a “selling club”.