Just in case you thought the Alexis Sanchez transfer saga didn’t have enough plot twists, don’t worry, because today brought not one, but two more. According to multiple reports across the United Kingdom, Manchester United remain the front-runners to acquire the Arsenal forward, but Chelsea are now in, and Manchester City have now pulled out.
We now have an old-fashioned bidding war on our hands, and with that, a lot of the familiar archetypes that you have for each team apply to this situation (at least to some extent).
United and Chelsea in a big money bidding war over a big name transfer target? Yep, sounds familiar, along with the one club trying to hijack the other at the last minute (revenge for the Romelu Lukaku transfer in the summer maybe?)
With Alexis Sanchez, you have a player’s agent who is doing his job, and attacking that job with a lot of exuberance. As for City, they have spent enough money on talent in the final third, and with their ridiculously talented roster already, they are simply not that interested in paying a lot of money for a player who will see his contract expire in the summer.
So will United beat out Chelsea for the Chilean?
When asked about his club’s chances in this situation, United manager Jose Mourinho said he felt “not confident, but also not, what’s the opposite of confident? Unconfident. Not unconfident.”
Don’t expect the Alexis Sanchez transfer saga to be resolved in the next day or two, and do expect it to see yet another subplot or two before it ends.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net and TheBank.News, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, currently contributes regularly to WGN CLTV and the Tribune company’s blogging community Chicago Now.
Follow him on Twitter, Instagram, Sound Cloud, LinkedIn and YouTube.