In all the flurry of each day’s activity on the blogs, radio and TV it is sometimes hard to remember just what was being said by the media a month or two back. But it might be worth recalling what was being said about Alexis Sanchez last summer. The Sun for example ran:
SICK: Alexis Sanchez sends Arsenal fans into meltdown after club say he will return to training but Chilean claims to be ill
The same month the Daily Express was telling us that “Wenger has effectively said that he and Arsenal are happy to forego any transfer fee they might receive for player who does not want to be at the club, simply to get one more year out of him and allow him to walk away for nothing next year.” (Quite why some words have to be in bold seemingly at random is beyond me but that is what they do.)
The following transfer window the same over excited football reporters told us on 21st January, “Alexis Sanchez: Fans go insane as Man Utd move edges closer.)
The story continued…
“Manchester United fans go insane as Alexis Sanchez move draws near. The Red Devils have agreed a straight swap to sign Alexis Sanchez from Arsenal with Henrikh Mkhitaryan heading in the opposite direction. It’s understood no money will be involved. Sanchez is in Manchester and is expected to …”
Well I don’t have to continue, do I? We can all remember just three months ago. Manchester United fans going wild at the prospect of getting rid of a load of dross and bringing in a superstar.
Of course we can still have a laugh at unexpectedly odd headlines such as the Metro’s “Alexis Sanchez admits he is struggling on Instagram” – after all surely if he is not too good on the computer surely he can get someone to help him.
But overall it seems that it is not Arsenal but Man U who came out worse from the deal that was supposed to be all one way, as now the headlines read “Manchester United bosses worried that Alexis Sanchez’s wages will affect summer transfer plans. ..” as Alexis’ huge wages will cause pressure from all other players wanting to keep up.
Alexis problems are, it seems, multifarious. Since he left Arsenal there have been various allegations that he caused problems in the dressing room, and now these same comments are being made at Old Trafford with headlines such as the Mirror’s “Manchester United is worried Alexis Sanchez is isolated at the club.”
Of course one thing is certain. It was all Arsenal’s fault. He was “over-indulged” at Arsenal (that again from the Express) although one might have thought that Man U would have done what businessmen like to call “due diligence” and investigated the fellow before agreeing to take him off Arsenal’s hands.
As for the latest from the Express which seems to have appointed itself Alexis Sanchez’ mind reader, the player himself believes he made a huge mistake in going to Old Trafford.
But let’s turn back for a moment to Arsenal.
When the news first broke that it was Ozil who was likely to get a huge pay-rise and a new contract while Alexis would go, there was (at least according to the media) much wailing and gnashing of teeth. Mesut was rubbish, he didn’t work, he looked like he had lost interest in the game plus Man United were going to come in with a big offer for him to reunite with Jose Mourinho at Old Trafford. (We knew this because the media told us so).
As for that Mkhitaryan – why were we buying a player who was clearly an abject failure at Manchester United? And Aubameyang was only available because he was a known trouble maker.
Of course we can each have our opinion as to what has worked and what has not, but I would argue that there was one extremely clever twist in all this. Mkhitaryan and Aubameyang were old pals who liked playing together. And there was nothing amiss with Ozil – other than a drop in form for a few weeks, around the time he seemed to be ill.
Personally I reckon Arsenal have got a deal out of the January transfer window that works perfectly while Manchester United have lost a potentially very good player and brought another one who carries around with him a whole series of personal problems.
Yes Man U will benefit by the fact that Alexis is not shooting off to Chile every five minutes to play for his country and won’t be risking body and soul playing in the World Cup in Russia, and maybe those factors will lead to him recovering his form and delivering the goods for Man U. Chelsea and particularly Manchester City (who were both linked with signing Sanchez) may end up doing well to have avoided signing the player only time will tell.
But that is not really my concern. I think with our transfers we have got a couple of excellent players who play well together, and retained the most important player in the team.
Time will tell, but for the moment, those commentaries of impending disaster from the media now look rather out of place. There was a disaster, but it wasn’t to do with Alexis leaving, rather it was to do with him arriving.