Bayern Munich president Karl-Heinz Rummenigge thinks Alexis Sanchez’s next club has already been decided.

Alexis is in the final year of his contract with the Gunners, but so far has made no public announcement of his intentions after this season. There aren’t many fans who still believe the Chilean will renew with the Gunners, but there some who are still hopeful the forward will move abroad rather than to a direct rival.

Rummenigge suggests that Alexis won’t be joining Bayern Munich, however, explaining: “I think Sanchez has already decided which club [to join], so I suppose that the door will be closed in January. That’s not an issue, and he is no direct substitute for Robert Lewandowski as he is not a real centre forward.”

To an extent, Rummenigge may just be trying to manage the expectations of Bayern Munich fans. There will presumably be quite a few teams in for Alexis in January, so it would be ill-advised to get supporters’ hopes up only to see the player move somewhere else.

However, it does seem to support the suspicion that Alexis has already decided he’s joining Manchester City. The Chilean almost moved on the final day of the summer transfer window, and won’t have seen much this season to suggest Arsenal are the more likely club to win the trophies.

If anything, at this point, it seems like City don’t even need Alexis to win those titles. But no doubt they’d take him as a back up, if he’s moving for free anyway.

Arsenal have another six months to convince him against it.