How Arsenal's £92m deadline-day collapse denied Sanchez his move to Manchester City

Arsenal’s attempt to sell Alexis Sanchez to Manchester City in the summer of 2017 fell apart on deadline day after the club failed to complete a £92 million move for Monaco winger Thomas Lemar, leaving Sanchez stranded in north London for another six months.

The sequence of events began when Pep Guardiola identified Sanchez as a priority target and City submitted a £55 million bid — including £5 million in add-ons — which Arsenal were prepared to accept, but only on the condition that they secured a replacement. Lemar was that replacement, and the Gunners met Monaco’s £92 million asking price for the versatile France international.

The deal unravelled when Lemar featured for France in a 4-0 World Cup qualifying victory over the Netherlands, preventing Arsenal from completing the paperwork and the player’s medical before the window closed. The Guardian reported at the time that Arsenal claimed they simply ran out of time. City, for their part, were reportedly left believing Lemar had turned down the move himself.

With the transfer dead, manager Arsene Wenger offered Sanchez a new contract worth £300,000 per week in an attempt to tie him down. The Chilean rejected it. In January 2018, he joined Manchester United in a straight swap for Henrikh Mkhitaryan, landing a package that, including bonuses, could reach £560,000 a week across a two-and-a-half-year deal.

The move proved disastrous for all parties. Sanchez scored just five goals in 45 appearances for United, contributing nine assists, before being loaned to Inter Milan little more than a year after arriving at Old Trafford. Despite pocketing an estimated £35 million in wages during his time at the club, he is widely regarded as one of the most expensive flops in Premier League history.

Lemar, meanwhile, joined Atletico Madrid a year later and has spent eight seasons in La Liga, managing 10 goals and 19 assists in 186 appearances — a modest return for a player who was briefly valued at £92 million. Mkhitaryan, the man who came the other way, made a limited impact at Arsenal before eventually moving to Roma.

The episode remains one of the more chaotic deadline-day sagas in recent Premier League memory, a chain of near-misses that reshaped the trajectories of Sanchez, Lemar, and Mkhitaryan alike. As Arsenal prepare to do business in the current summer window, Mikel Arteta will be hoping for a smoother ride.