Monaco boss Leonardo Jardim admits that the French club will be forced to consider selling Thomas Lemar midway through the season should the English clubs targeting his signature put together an offer too tempting to refuse.
Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool are all keen to bring in Lemar, with the Gunners still believed to view the 22-year-old as the ideal replacement for Alexis Sanchez, who is expected to leave this month.
Lemar opted out of a £92million move to the Emirates on deadline day in August though Arsene Wenger has confirmed that his pursuit of the French international will not be ended.
And Jardim conceded that one of the Premier League big guns could be able to secure Lemar this month, though warned Monaco would expect them to pay a heavy price to get the deal done in midseason.
“Today, the market is open. You know how crazy the market is,” Jardim said. “Things happen that even a club like Monaco cannot say no to. It happened to Liverpool (who sold Philippe Coutinho to Barcelona for £146m).
“Things are as they are. The numbers today are incredibly big. Everything can change. The things I can say today are not true tomorrow.
“In the last two transfer windows, last summer and this winter, the numbers have gone up enormously. I still want to keep Lemar. If I stay here for 10 years I want Lemar to stay with me for 10 years.
“He is young, he can still play for 10 years. He has a lot of qualities, I like him a lot.”
Les Monagesques have previously expressed a reluctance to part with their star assets midseason and, having brought in over £140m in the summer and with Kylian Mbappe due to join Paris Saint-Germain for £160m next season, are under no pressure to accept anything other than a huge fee for any of their players.
