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Wenger: Sanchez can play as a centre forward forever

Arsene Wenger says he will not panic buy before the end of the transfer window after Alexis Sanchez scored his first goal for Arsenal on the same day Olivier Giroud was ruled out for the rest of the year.

The Arsenal manager revealed before his side scraped into the Champions League group stage for the 17th straight season with a 1-0 win over Besiktas on Wednesday that Giroud underwent surgery on a broken tibia and will not be available until at least the end of December.

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And while Wenger did not rule out buying a new striker ahead of Monday's deadline day, he did say he will not be "buying just for the sake of buying" and insisted he bought Sanchez to fill that very role.

"He can play his whole life as centre forward," Wenger said of the Chile international. "I bought him to play as a striker, not only on the flanks. He was mobile, dangerous and showed great fighting spirit.

"If you want to make everybody happy, [you] just buy all these players, but you cannot just buy when a player is injured. If you look at the players on the bench and those injured, we have players.

"We are open to any position as long as we feel the player can strengthen the squad. I do not see the purpose of buying just to buy. If we feel we have a player who can give something to us, we will do it in any position."

When asked about Arsenal's surprise link to former Birmingham City striker Nikola Zigic, Wenger added: "Who? Zigic? No.

"You will ask me straight away who we will buy. I give you the answer - at the moment, no one."

Wenger said Arsenal's win over Besiktas had been "anxious", particularly after the sending off of Mathieu Debuchy for a second yellow card. Sanchez's first half goal was worth around £30 million in prize money for reaching the group stage, repaying his transfer fee paid to Barcelona last month.

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