Unkillable Chelsea transfer rumors: Alexis Sánchez, Alex Sandro in January links

A bit of classic international break transfer rumor mongering for you today, as the Mirror drops the Mirror-esque truth-bomb (read: don’t bet on it) that Chelsea “eye” Alexis Sánchez and Alex Sandro as January reinforcements. (Is that all?) We spent much of last winter and spring talking about the former already, and we spent much of the summer talking about the latter, both to absolutely no avail as they remained with their respective teams.

But, neither has signed a new contract just yet and that does lend a bit of weight (barely measurable, but it’s there) to these rumors.

Alexis’s contract is up in the summer, which means he can leave for free at the end of the season and can already sign a contract with a non-Premier League team in January. Arsenal’s only recourse is to either sign him to a new deal (which seems unlikely, even just as a favor to the Gunners to ensure a transfer fee), or to sell him in January, when they might be able to convince Manchester City or Chelsea to fork over a big pile of cash. City are the more likely candidate even then, as they may or may not have come close to actually signing Alexis in the summer only for Arsenal to back out of the deal to sign a replacement in Thomas Lemar at the last minute.

Meanwhile, Alex Sandro decided to stay at Juventus this summer in part because he was promised a new contract and associated wage rise. That hasn’t happened yet, so if for some reason he decides that he is in fact keen to join Chelsea and Conte, maybe we could figure out some sort of a deal. This is even more unlikely than the Alexis thing — much more so, in all likelihood — but that’s the international break for ya.

Carry on.