Arsene Wenger drops biggest hint yet that Alexis Sanchez will leave Arsenal for free as he looks for a £70m replacement

Club are already looking to spend between £60m-£70m on a replacement for Sanchez

Alexis Sanchez can leave Arsenal on a free transfer at the end of the season (Getty)

Arsene Wenger has dropped his biggest hint yet that Alexis Sanchez will leave Arsenal at the end of the season by confirming that he will need to spend up to £70m on finding a replacement.

The prospect of Sanchez leaving the club very nearly materialised on transfer deadline day last Thursday when Manchester City offered £60m for the Chile international, resulting in a hasty £92m bid for Monaco forward Thomas Lemar that eventually fell through.

Wenger has already confirmed that the club will move for the 21-year-old again next summer, but that looks certain to be a direct replacement for 28-year-old Sanchez after the Arsenal manager admitted he is prepared to sacrifice “one or two players” who are close the end of their current contracts.

“You take Sanchez into the final year of his contract, you sacrifice £60m-£70m income, and at the end of the season you will have to buy somebody for that amount of money, so it has a huge price,” Wenger told BeIN Sport. “At some stage you have to make a decision, you have to sacrifice one or two.

“We have today 107 players in England who go into the final year of their contract, it’s a complete change in the way people see their career for two reasons: all the players expect higher wages because they anticipate inflation, and because the transfer market has gone up so much other clubs do not want to pay such high prices on the transfers for players who are good players.”

Arsenal are hopeful that they can persuade Sanchez to sign a new contract over the course of the current season, although the side's results so far this term will have done little to sway his mind after the Gunner suffered defeats by Stoke City and Liverpool.

Wenger paid particular attention to one deal in particular, with Ousmane Dembele’s £135m transfer from Borussia Dortmund to Barcelona raising serious alarm bells for the Arsenal boss.

Ousmane Dembele joined Barcelona in a £135m deal from Dortmund (Getty)

“The amount of money is completely disconnected to reality and the truth,” he explained. “I give you one example, no matter how well you work as a football coach, Dembele last year was €15m, this year €150m.

“No matter how well you work on a football pitch you cannot make a player go from €15m to €150m, but the calculation between investment and what you can get back has gone, it’s just can you afford to buy or not.”