Arsenal ready to hand Alexis Sanchez huge new deal

Arsenal are ready to offer Alexis Sanchez a five-year, £130,000-a-week new contract.

Chile international Sanchez - who helped the Gunners win the FA Cup last season and scored the winner for his country in the summer's Copa America final - has proved to be an outstanding buy for manager Arsene Wenger.

Forward Alexis cost £29.75 million when signed from Barcelona in July last year. And he has impressed everyone at the North London club - staff and players - with his attitude and his commitment.

That was illustrated in the close-season, when he reported back early from international duty to make himself available for the first Premier League game against West Ham on August 9 - just 36 days after that Copa America final.

Alexis was substitute for the 2-0 defeat and came on for the last 23 minutes - after Wenger had previously suggested the 26-year-old would miss the first two weeks of the season because of his exertions with Chile.

And Alexis has shown again in the last eight days just what an asset he is to the club.

He scored a hat-trick last Saturday when Arsenal hammered Leicester 5-2 to inflict a first defeat of the season on the Midlands club, leaving opposing manager Claudio Ranieri to call him “ amazing. He was born with the ball.”

Alexis was also one of the few Arsenal players to emerge with any credit from the shock 3-2 home defeat in the Champions League against Greek side Olympiakos last Tuesday.

Wenger now has the necessary finances to offer Alexis - whose current agreement runs out in 2018 — a tempting pay-rise in a bid to ensure he stays long-term at Arsenal, with contract talks likely to start this side of Christmas.

Before Sunday's massive home match against Manchester United, a senior Arsenal source said: “It would be no surprise if there was a new contract offer."