Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger refuses to knock Alexis Sanchez over record Manchester United transfer

Arsene Wenger refused to condemn Alexis Sanchez after the forward completed his move to Manchester United,

The Chile international signed a contract worth £350,000-a-week at Old Trafford in a swap deal which saw Henrikh Mkhitaryan move to Emirates Stadium.

Sanchez ran his Arsenal deal down to within five months of completion and former Gunners defender Martin Keown described the player as a “mercenary”.

Wenger smiled when it was put to him that Sanchez had verbally agreed a deal around a year ago only to renege on it later in the season.

“You can interpret my smile, you know me well enough for years, so I leave you free to do that,” the Frenchman said.

“Look, I don’t want to come back on the history of his negotiations, but maybe one day. Alexis is a great guy and has always been committed, did the negotiations go well or not well? It has never affected him and I would just like to remind you I took him to the hotel on the night before the Crystal Palace game and he was completely focused and ready to play the next day until I told him, look you can go home, the deal is over the line.”

Mkhitaryan struggled during his 18-month spell at United and Wenger added: “He suffered a little bit maybe from the competition he had their and overall that is his challenge, my challenge is to get him to express his talent completely, that we know is absolutely right because he has done extremely well, so he has a new challenge that we want to help him be successful in.”

Arsenal face Chelsea in their Carabao Cup semi-final, second leg on Wednesday with Aaron Ramsey (illness) and Nacho Monreal (leg) facing late fitness tests. Danny Welbeck (groin) also misses out with Wenger also dismissing talk of a loan move to Besiktas.