It’s not officially official yet, but the announcement or “unveiling” should come in a matter of hours. Alexis Sanchez is leaving Manchester United and joining Inter Milan, on a permanent basis. Both clubs, coincidentally on a day that saw each of them reach the Europa League quarterfinals, confirmed that a deal has been reached.
The UEL bracket is set in a manner that we could have a United-Inter final. How compelling that would indeed be, given the transfer market events here regarding the Chilean.
“He is not official yet but unofficially he is ours for three seasons,” Inter CEO Beppe Marotta said to Sky Sports Italy ahead of his club’s 2-0 win over Getafe.
Inter will face Bayer Leverkusen or Rangers in the quarters. Sanchez, 31, has more more goal (4) in 10 less appearances (22) than he had with United. Why he flopped so badly at United, we’ll never really know, but injuries obviously played a big part.
“We believe in him a lot and we are happy,” United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer said after his side beat LASK Linz 2-1 (7-1 on aggregate).
“I can confirm that he’s agreed and we’ve agreed. Alexis enjoyed his time there. They’ve liked him, so of course that’s a good move for him. Wish him all the best. He’s a top player, that we want to see play his best football.”
“For whatever reason we didn’t see the best of Alexis, but he’s a top professional and we just wish him all the best.”
Alexis was named Arsenal’s player of the year just eight months before he moved over to United in a swap deal that saw Henrikh Mkhitaryan going the other way. His league dropped off the map entirely, from 24 in 16/17 to 9 in 17/18 to 1 in 18/19.
It wasn’t just the loss of form, but the record setting salary that made him a big league bust, of epic proportions. However, maybe a fresh start is what he needs. There have been conflicting reports as to the specifics of the deal, but the Chilean agreed to essentially rip up the final two seasons of his current deal.
That’s an amount worth £55 million, and it frees up more money to pursue top transfer target Jadon Sancho.
The Sanchez departure also makes free the #7 shirt, the most legendary of all in United lore for Sancho to now inherit. However, United and BVB are still pretty far apart when it comes to getting that deal done. Here is a link to the latest.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, the author of “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry,” regularly contributes to WGN TV, Sports Illustrated, Chicago Now and SB Nation.
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