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Timeline: How Arsenal's Lemar deal fell apart, and Sanchez stayed put

Reuters / Eric Gaillard Livepic

The perils of procrastination came to the fore on Thursday.

Arsenal and Manchester City, instead of working throughout the summer to find a solution, waited until the final day of the transfer window to try to close a pair of conjoined deals, and in the end, each ended up walking away empty-handed.

Pep Guardiola's interest in Alexis Sanchez has long been established, but the Citizens didn't submit an official offer until Wednesday. When reports Thursday suggested an improved bid of £55 million plus another £5 million in add-ons was enough to close the deal, attention shifted to the Gunners - Arsenal, it was reported, would only green light the sale of the wantaway Chilean if a replacement was procured.

Enter Thomas Lemar.

A blitz for the French winger started Thursday, kicking off a wild few hours of action that saw the club agree to a mammoth fee, then drop out after being unable to reach personal terms with the player.

Related - Report: Arsenal runs out of time as €100M move for Lemar collapses

Here's how a madcap morning played out:

Arsenal, Manchester City reach Sanchez agreement:

That replacement was identified as Monaco's Lemar:

After reports suggested Arsenal tabled a gargantuan €100-million bid, it seemed things had been sorted:

That left some scratching their heads at the scattergun approach from the Gunners:

And then, it all fell apart:

Why the sudden change? The ever-reliable David Ornstein gave Arsenal supporters the cold, hard truth about Lemar's decision:

And here we are. Lemar remains at Monaco, and Sanchez will be playing out the final year of his deal in north London.

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