Arsenal, Alexis Sánchez and the question of who will blink first

At the end of last season, Alexis Sánchez was approached by an Arsenal team-mate who wanted to know what was happening with the striker’s new contract. “Are you going to stay with us next season?” he asked. Sánchez barely broke stride and completely blanked him.

The story will doubtless raise a few smiles among journalists, who are well used to getting that sort of treatment from players post-match. But from one team-mate to another?

Sánchez is a man who gives little away and it is said his agent, Fernando Felicevich, who does all the talking. The forward can sometimes be detached or prickly and when the players said their goodbyes for the summer no one in the dressing room could say with any certainty that they would line up alongside Sánchez again.

The aforementioned episode suggested it did not look good and Arsenal are confronted by a situation that is bleak and familiar. Sánchez, who has one year to run on his contract, wants out and although Arsène Wenger will not admit so in public, he knows it in private.

In a rare interview on 30 June, Sánchez said he had made up his mind about where he would play next season but he had to keep it to himself. “It’s clear but I can’t tell you anything,” he said before Chile’s appearance in the Confederations Cup final against Germany. It seemed significant he could not say whether it would be at Arsenal. He has given no indication at any stage that he wants to stay at the club.

The 28-year-old is understood to have asked for £400,000 a week – or £20.8m a year – to re-sign and he and Felicevich must know Arsenal will not pay that. An unrealistic wage demand goes hand in glove with the exit strategy. Arsenal, meanwhile, are strongly pursuing Monaco’s left-sided forward, Thomas Lemar.

Sánchez’s rider to remain at the club might not be unrealistic in the broader market context. In January, he would be allowed to agree pre-contract terms at an overseas club for a free-agent move in the summer and in that scenario, he could expect to receive the amount – or something similar – that the club would save in transfer fees as a signing-on bonus or even built into his salary. Given he could command a fee of about £50m, it is fair to assume the figure would not be insignificant.

It has been reported Sánchez has the offer of £400,000 a week from an unnamed Chinese club and Felicevich has used it as leverage in discussions with Arsenal. It has also become clear he has felt empowered to ask for the money his client would stand to receive as a free agent.

Zlatan Ibrahimovic has helped to set the bar in this area. The striker joined Manchester United on a Bosman transfer last summer and leaked details of his contract showed he agreed to be paid a basic salary of €420,000 (about £367,000) per week.

Bayern Munich have balked at the figures involved for Sánchez but Paris Saint-Germain are still in play, even if it might be smarter for them to wait until January – at least for financial reasons. Sánchez, though, has his mind made up and it is set on Manchester City, where he would be reunited with Pep Guardiola, the manager who took him from his first European club, Udinese, to Barcelona in 2011.

Arsenal are not convinced Guardiola wants him, that City’s interest is concrete. They have noted how Guardiola started Sánchez in only 20 of the 38 La Liga matches during their one season together at Barcelona, although Sánchez did suffer from various fitness problems.

But being forced to sell their star player to a Premier League rival – as they did with Robin van Persie to Manchester United in 2012 after he had refused to extend a contract that had one year to run – is the nightmare scenario and they are resolved to do anything other than that.

It adds up to a standoff, with the ace in Sánchez’s hand being the refusal to sign another contract. In that case, Arsenal could still get another season out of him and they could tell themselves they would be saving the difference between his £130,000-a-week wage and the one for which they would have him re-sign. They have offered him £275,000 a week, which represents an annual increase of £6.5m. Yet the sum would be dwarfed by what Arsenal could receive as a transfer fee this summer.

If Sánchez demands to be allowed to join City – or even Chelsea if they were to come back into the equation after their failure to close a deal for Romelu Lukaku, who has gone from Everton to United – he has Arsenal over a barrel. Surely, the club could not justify the monies they would forfeit by holding him to his final year?

Wenger’s position has been consistent and he spelt it out yet again after landing in Sydney for the first leg of the club’s tour. He said he expected Sánchez to respect his contract and he would refuse, in particular, to sell him to a domestic rival. Wenger added that the player could even agree to an extension at Arsenal during the season.

Arsenal have worked hard to put a compelling offer in front of the striker but at the end of this month there will be the moment when he reports back for training after his post-Confederations Cup leave and Wenger looks him in the eye to determine his level of commitment. Can the warrior spirit still burn for Sánchez in Arsenal colours?

It said much that as soon as Arsenal arrived in Sydney, Wenger was hit with a Sánchez question from an Australian journalist. “That’s a question I didn’t expect today,” Wenger said with a smile. “The pressure starts again – first press conference and we are there.”

Arsenal are the kings of the one-year-to-go contract saga. This one has plenty of legs.