Monaco are preparing to bid for Alexis Sanchez in response to Arsenal’s Thomas Lemar chase, according to reports.

Arsenal have reportedly been chasing Thomas Lemar all summer, and have made at least one bid according to all reliable sources. Wenger has even confirmed the club are in negotiations for the player.

So far, Monaco have refused to budge, whilst letting other young stars like Benjamin Mendy, Tiemoue Bakayoko and Bernardo Silva all leave for other English clubs.

Now, Monaco have turned round and allegedly made a bid for Alexis Sanchez, according to The S*n (we know). With only a year left on his contract, the French club hope to lure Alexis away, claims the report.

The rumoured move is reminiscent of PSG’s deal for Neymar.

Earlier in the summer, Barcelona had been strongly linked with PSG’s Marco Verratti. In an apparent response to that interest, PSG then engineered a move for Neymar, one of Barca’s star players.

The Verratti rumours seem to have died down, and Neymar is now a PSG player, leaving Barcelona in a weaker position than where they started. The official PSG twitter account seemed to poke fun at the Catalan club over the situation, posting this tweet on the day that Neymar completed his transfer:

https://twitter.com/PSG_English/status/893162222905643009?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Fmetro.co.uk%2F2017%2F08%2F03%2Fpsg-troll-barcelona-over-neymar-transfer-with-marco-verratti-tweet-6827701%2F

However, in this case, The S*n claim that the French club are trying to use this bid as a negotiation tactic, rather than to try and intimidate Arsenal.

As always, any information coming from The S*n has to be taken with a large pinch of salt.

Wenger has repeatedly stated that Alexis will remain at the club even if that means losing him on a free next summer.

It  seems unlikely that if Monaco did make this kind of bid, Arsenal would entertain it.

Alexis would probably also have reservations about moving to a club that was in the process of selling many of its best players, even if that club does have Champions League football.