Craig Bellamy thinks that Alexis Sanchez will leave Arsenal on deadline day, and that the Gunners only have themselves to blame.

Bellamy was speaking on Sky Sports about the business Arsenal have done in the transfer market this summer. He gave his opinion on the Sanchez situation, as well as the general state of affairs at Arsenal, saying: “Sanchez will not be an Arsenal player beyond Thursday. I can really see City forcing their hand.

“I hate being like everyone else, critical of Arsenal, but they are in a mess. They’ve got themselves into a situation where the manager didn’t sign his contract, so a lot of players’ futures remained uncertain too. Arsenal have themselves to blame at this moment, and tomorrow it could get worse.

“It could be the worst transfer window in Arsenal’s history, it could be that bad. They’re light on numbers as it is. They could end up losing the best players they’ve had at Arsenal since your Thierry Henry days.”

Arsenal have rejected the only bid that has come in from Manchester City for Alexis Sanchez so far, but there are rumours of a new £70m bid being prepared for the Chilean, so it remains to be seen whether Bellamy is right that the Gunners will lose the player.

It’s unlikely Arsenal will let Alexis leave unless they have a replacement coming in at the same time, or at least an agreement in place with another player to spend the money on. The club do seem to be in a bit of a mess with transfers, but for the opposite reason to what Bellamy is claiming.

Although he says that the squad is “light on numbers”, this couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, Arsenal have too many players, hence the need to offload some. The problem is that many of these players aren’t considered to be top quality.

Players like Mathieu Debuchy, Joel Campbell and Lucas Perez aren’t getting anywhere near the first-team, yet currently they’re all still on the wage bill. A lot of deals would need to be done today to solve this problem.