The Mirror are reporting that after ‘dramatic’ late night developments, Alexis Sanchez has said goodbye to his Arsenal teammates and is set for a United medical today.

Of course, this news comes via John Cross of the Mirror so it’s worth taking with a shovel of salt but a player going for a medical in a deal we all know is close is not exactly a massive leap.

mirror alexis manchester united medical

Sam Mokbel is also reporting that Alexis said goodbye to his teammates. He claims his story is an EXCLUSIVE and given the timestamp on both articles, it seems the Daily Mail had their article live around seven hours before John Cross. Cross’s article initially did not contain any information about a medical but was updated around 50 minutes after being published.

The S*n then got in on the act an hour later with the above information, based on the Mirror’s initial report, minus the medical claim.

There were stories on Friday, stemming from the Daily Mail, that claimed Henrikh Mkhitaryan had also said his goodbyes, with a source at United telling the right-wing rag that the Armenian shed a tear over the departure.

Back to Alexis, and the Mail and Mirror claim he left the team hotel at 11pm on Friday night, headed for Manchester to complete his move. Quite why he felt the need to travel at 11pm and not wait until morning is open to debate.

Arsene Wenger had reportedly named the Chilean in his 19-man squad ahead of the game against Crystal Palace at the Emirates on Saturday.

The Mirror report also claims that Arsenal are willing to split the transfers into two separate deals after being ‘locked in negotiations’ for days over a straight swap.

It has been claimed that Arsenal want £12m in addition to Mkhitaryan while United value the player at £35m – the same amount as they are prepared to pay Arsenal for Alexis.

Swap deals, as we often note on DailyCannon.com, are very rare and it is no surprise that the deals would be done separately.

Mkhitaryan will reportedly become Arsenal’s highest earner should he join but his salary will be dwarfed by that handed to Alexis who looks set to become England’s first £500k-per-week player.