According to El Pais, Samuel Sanchez had reached an agreement with Team Tinkoff-Saxo to join the team as soon as he had reached an agreement with Euskaltel to terminate his contract. That final hurdle has now been resolved but Oleg Tinkov has reportedly blocked the move, preferring to have more Russians and younger riders on the team.

Samuel Sanchez was about to receive the Christman present that he had most dreamt of when he reached an agreement with Euskaltel to terminate the contract that made him a rider for the Basque team until the end of the 2015 season. According to El Pais, the Spaniard had reached a verbal agreement with Team Tinkoff-Saxo to join the team when his contractual situation had been resolved.

For a long time, Sanchez had been rumoured to have signed a contract with a WorldTour team and in recent days, it had appeared to be all but guaranteed that he would join Oleg Tinkov's new team. Today's reports suggest that this was indeed the case.

However, Sanchez may have to forget about joining his friend Alberto Contador as one of the star riders on the Danish team. El Pais reports that the team's new owner, Oleg Tinkov, has blocked the move.

Apparently, two events have complicated things for Sanchez. Firstly, Tinkov's purchase of the team has made his spot on the roster uncertain, with the businessman preferring to add more Russians to the team that only has Evgeny Petrov and new signings Ivan Rovny and Nikolay Trusov it its ranks.

Secondly, Michael Rogers' positive test for clenbuterol has prompted an angry reaction from Tinkov. He is now more keen to focus on younger riders than veterans like Rogers and Sanchez who are 35 and 34 years of age respectively.

"The story is complicated," Sanchez told El Pais. "Now I can only be patient and wait."

If the reports are true, it explains why Sanchez has broken a long period of silence in the days just before Christmas. In several interviews, he had been keen to stress that he is still on the market and has signed no contract yet.

“A new contract would be the ideal Christmas present,” he told Cyclingnews on Monday, “but for now there’s nothing.”

“The situation is what it is and you have to adapt to that," he added. "I’m training so that at least if a team decides that I should sign for them, I’m in good shape. I was in Dubai for a week, training there, and since Friday I’ve been back here in Spain.”

Sanchez refused the idea of doing a year on the continental level before returning with Fernando Alonso's team in 2015.

"No way would I do that, at my age that's not possible," he said. “The only ‘reality’ at the moment is that I don’t have a team for 2014. Nothing is signed and I’m still looking. I would love to be able to say I’ve signed with Saxo or Omega or Orica or Astana or any team, but that’s not the case. It’s as bad as it sounds."

“The last thing I want to do is retire like this, stop racing because I’ve got no choice, and as a result of circumstances that had nothing to do with me.”

Sanchez' career may be in danger but his ambitions are still lofty. Despite a bad 2013 season where the highlights were a stage win in the Dauphiné and an 8th place in the Vuelta, he still believes that he can be a contender in the biggest races.

“It’s the same with any bike rider, you’re always thinking about what other objectives you might have," he said. "In my case, I’d still like to win a Grand Tour and the World Championships road race. I know it’ll be hard, but hey, dreaming is free."