Chelsea manager Antonio Conte denies the Blues want to sign Alexis Sanchez this month, despite reports suggesting they were making a late effort for the Chilean’s signature.

Reporters asked the Chelsea manager whether the club were trying to sign Alexis in his pre-match press conference on Tuesday morning. The Italian simply responded: “I don’t think so.”

On Monday night David Ornstein tweeted that Manchester City were pulling out of the race for the 29-year-old. They didn’t want to compete with Manchester United’s offer, and believed Chelsea were making a move as well.

Then, Sky Sports seemingly confirmed the Blues’ interest. They said Conte rates the forward highly, and tried to sign him for Juventus in the past. An update from David Ornstein revealed that the Gunners won’t sell to United without Henrikh Mkhitaryan going the other way.

At the time, that seemed to open the door for Chelsea to make a player swap offer of their own. Now, it’s questionable whether they were ever interested in the first place.

Whether Conte is telling the truth or not, it seems the Gunners are standing by their stance in the summer, that they’ll only let Alexis leave if they have a replacement lined up.

I think that’s a positive thing, because the worst case scenario is Arsenal ending up with no one. It does look like the deal is going to drag on as a result, though, so hopefully something is agreed before the weekend match against Crystal Palace.