Despite talks of a fresh bid for Alexis Sanchez in January by Man City, Arsene Wenger is optimistic about keeping hold of our key attacker at least until next summer.

Sanchez was all set to join City in the summer when we ran out of time signing his replacement, but it now seems inevitable that the Chilean will be playing his last season for Arsenal and will more than likely leave for free next summer.

Wenger said via FourFourTwo:

“You say everybody thinks City will come in for Alexis – I am part of everybody and I don’t think he will go, do City need him? They have to decide that but we need him here…”

Wenger also denied that Sanchez was close to leaving:

“Was he close to joining City? No, but at the end of the day, close or not does not matter. It does not have any influence. What is important is that, when you are somewhere and you have the opportunity to give your best, that is what you must do…”

In an interview with the Manchester Evening News, Pep Guardiola says that there are no plans to sign Alexis currently but his strikers do need a ‘shake up’.

One thing is for sure, Alexis is a lot more important for us that he ever would be at Man City.

Ozil dropped for City game?

We take on Man City tomorrow (Sunday) live on Sky Sports, kick off at 14:15 UK time.