Manchester United may be about to get Alexis Sanchez off their hands but they will still be saddled with an enormous wage bill, according to reports.
Sanchez has become a figure of ridicule at United since joining from Arsenal in January 2018, scoring just three league goals in 32 appearances and increasingly being confined to the bench or the stands.
The club have been trying to find a club for Sanchez but his enormous wages have hamstrung their efforts to offload him with the player understandably unwilling to accept a massive pay cut.
The Chile international is at last set to join Inter Milan along with fellow United outcast Romelu Lukaku, but the Mail claim it will not be saving Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s side much money at all as they have only been able to agree a loan move for the forward.
Sanchez’s contractual wage reportedly earns him an eye-watering £400,000 a week and United will continue to pay £300,000 of that while Inter will contribute just £100,000.
It means that only David De Gea on a £375,00-a-week deal will be receiving a bigger pay cheque than Sanchez from United, despite the fact that he will not be playing for them this season.
Paul Pogba is said to earn £280,000 a week as the third best paid player at Old Trafford ahead of Anthony Martial and Marcus Rashford, both on a reported £200,000 weekly wage.
Sanchez is not even guaranteed to remain at Inter because the loan deal does not include an obligation to buy.
If he does end up staying at Inter, the Serie A side are said not to be interested in offering him more than £150,000 a week, meaning Sanchez would be walking away from £13million if he ended up signing a permanent contract.
United could find themselves having to buy Sanchez out of the remainder of his contract, which will still have two years to run and £42m of salary worth on it at the end of this season.
But Solskjaer even hinted that Sanchez could end up staying at Old Trafford.
“Alexis is a quality player. We don’t have loads of options,” Solskjaer said.
“If there is an offer that’s good enough for the club and him maybe he will go, but if not then he’s still our player and he’s a quality player.”
