Manchester City have made fresh contact with Arsenal over Alexis Sanchez.
We revealed last week that City were ready to make a renewed bid for Sanchez, having failed to land him in the summer.
Arsenal’s hierarchy have made a decision that Sanchez can leave, but only at the right price – which is understood to be £30million – half the price they agreed with City for the Chilean last summer.
However, City have already indicated that they do not want to pay more than £20million – but sources close to the situation have told me that a figure of around £25million could get the deal done.
I understand that Sanchez has again reiterated his desire to leave to Arsenal – and they are now ready to listen. Both the player and City are hopeful they can strike a deal this month, rather than waiting until the summer, when he can move on a free transfer.
Bookmakers firmly believe that City will be grabbing Sanchez this month – Unibet list City at 2/9, which is a probability over 80%.
Unibet’s Alistair Gill told us: “Sanchez to Man City in this January transfer window is looking increasingly like a done deal if you are going purely on the market.
“We have seen a huge jump in the money we’ve seen on this one since the window opened, and 70% of that money has come in for City, causing the odds to disappear from 2/1 in to 2/9 in the last couple of weeks.
“Staying at Arsenal looks the only other viable option but those odds are fast going in the opposite direction, 3/4 out to 9/5 in the same period. And even given the difficulty of high profile transfers in Jan, punters don’t seem to fancy it, less than 20% coming in for that outcome.”