How Alexis Sanchez cost Man Utd an astonishing £11.5m per goal scored

Martin Macdonald

20 Jan 2022 17:54 GMT
3 min read

Involved in perhaps the worst swap deal in history, Alexis Sanchez arrived in Manchester as one of the Premier League’s best talents, and left as a failure.

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Beloved at Arsenal, Sanchez never produced the same form after making the long-awaited move to Old Trafford.

He scored just three Premier League goals in his 18 months at the club, and joined Inter on a free transfer, after his loan spell there, in 2020.

It wasn't just on the pitch that Sanchez negatively impacted Man Utd, but off the pitch, too, as some of the numbers involved in bringing him to the club are embarrassingly astronomical.

The Red Devils are lucky that they didn't have to pay a transfer fee for the Chilean, as he arrived from Arsenal in a straight swap deal with Henrikh Mkhitaryan.

But, the subsequent finances surrounding the deal are mind-boggling.

As well as offering Sanchez BASIC wages of £350,000 per week, they sweetened the initial deal by offering a signing on fee of around £6.7m.

Potential bonuses could take the weekly salary to as much as £560k per week.

This was offered in order to blow a rival offer from Manchester City out of the water, and it worked, to the club's detriment.

What was Alexis Sanchez's overall cost to Man Utd?

Before Sanchez eventually moved to Inter on loan, Man Utd had spent just under £35m on the player on wages, bonuses and agents fees.

Thereafter, they were still required to pay him £300k per week while he was at Inter due to the terms of the loan agreement.

Since he has been at Inter, he has cost the club another £15.7m in wages.

And, that isn't even taking into account the £9m payoff he was given to leave the club permanently for Serie A.

That may seem like a lot, and it is, but in paying Sanchez off they successfully saved a further £58m that would have been spent on subsequent wages and bonuses.