Wenger admits that Sanchez could leave for free next summer

Bengaluru, September 7: Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger believes the Gunners will need to spend £60m-£70million next summer and also admitted star forward Alexis Sanchez is likely to leave for nothing next June.

The French manager hinted that the Chilean superstar is likely to leave the club next summer which would mean that Arsenal would be unable to get any cash as the Chilean will be a free agent with his contract expiry.

The Arsenal manager went on to indicate that money will be spent to replace Sanchez in a recent interview.

“You take Sanchez into the final year of your contract, you sacrifice £60-£70m income and then at the end of the season you will have to buy somebody for that amount of money.”

"So it has a huge price. So at some stage you have to make a decision you have to sacrifice one or two [players]."

While at first the news that Wenger is willing to spend such money on a replacement for the star may be music to Arsenal fans’ ears, it is worth pointing out that Arsenal were already rumoured to be in talks with AS Monaco for Thomas Lemar and reportedly made a bid worth £92million on the deadline day.

Wenger also stressed that several players are likely to leave the club as their contracts are set to expire this summer.

However, in the interview the Frenchman avoided discussions whether he would make any effort at all to tie these players down to new contracts and instead opted to discuss the sudden inflation in the transfer market.

"We have today 107 players in England who go into the final year of their contract," said Wenger.

"It's a complete rotation and change in the way people see their careers for two reasons. One, all the players expect higher wages because they anticipate inflation; [and two] because the transfer market has gone up so much but clubs do not want to pay so high prices on transfers for players who are good players but will not change their life.

“The amount of money is completely disconnected to reality and the truth. I give you one example: no matter how well you work as a football coach, Dembele last year was €15million, this year €150million. No matter how well you work on the football pitch you cannot make a player go from €15million to €150million.

"But the calculation between investment and what you can get back has gone. It's just: can you afford to buy or not?"