Is Arsene Wenger right forcing Sanchez to stay?
3 January 2019
Arsenal fans will be forgiven if they have been drinking late into the night at bars in London. So much have happened to their darling team and is still happening to their team. A large section of the fans just can’t imagine the new season without Champions League football at the Emirates Stadium. For others, their flu is different. Seeing Wenger in the dugout again represents Arsenal’s seeming comfort with mediocrity. Well for all, Wenger brought in some French aspirin for their headache in the acquisition of Lacazette.
Looks like @gpaulista5 is a big fan of @LacazetteAlex 😅#AFCMembersDay pic.twitter.com/uo0JGDEOdG
— Arsenal (@Arsenal) August 3, 2017
He who dreams of Arsenal winning the Champions league would equally dream of marrying Queen Elizabeth. Arsenal has not really been competitive in Europe but they believed they had an ancestral home in the English top four. Everything changed last season and Arsenal was ostracized from the Champions league for a year (or possibly more). The turf in Emirates Stadium is no longer green enough, paling as players like Sanchez, Chamberlain have started seeing greener pastures outside the Emirates. Last season Sanchez was Arsenal’s beacon of hope. Bringing in 30 goals last season in all competitions, Alexis Sanchez represented the remaining fossils of the once glorious Arsenal invincibles. Same last season, Sanchez would uncork his fiery frustrations with the team with some involuntary tantrums. It was like he has been tasked to scoop off all the water in the Atlantic Ocean as the team looked bereft of world class talent aside him.
The boss was asked about @Alexis_Sanchez today… https://t.co/ie51yDXDyE
— Arsenal (@Arsenal) August 3, 2017
For Arsenal fans, the whole team was a desert and Alexis Sanchez was their only tiny Chilean oasis to drink from. Even Wenger knows that with Alexis off the cockpit, the Arsenal project might be forced to an emergency landing. This is why Wenger has chosen to chain Sanchez to Arsenal. Sanchez has one more year on his contract and has infamously refused to extend it. He has made no secret of his desire to let the curtains fall on his Arsenal career as the lure of Champions league and winning trophies seem too scenting for him to resist. Guardiola drools for a reunion with Sanchez, with bids also from Bayern Munich and PSG showing Sanchez has a stadium full of suitors.
Sanchez is a world class player, no doubt about that. He occupies the immediate lower drawer below Messi and Ronaldo. A club would pay through its nose to afford Sanchez, with no less than £50m leaving the purse in this already inflation-stricken transfer market. If you look at the ledgers, forcing Sanchez to finish his contract and stay the year only to leave for free would create a big vacuum on the financial books. However, if you look at the pitch, cashing in on Sanchez would create a big vacuum had to fill on the field of play. Few world class players like him are available in the market now and with Arsenal less enticing (without Champions League football), the perfume to draw big names in is not there.
https://twitter.com/ArsenalUrban/status/893111492983357440
Moreover, Arsenal has the ultimate unavoidable task of returning to the Champions League. For that, they need all their tools, especially their best tools. Thus Sanchez has to stay. Leaving for free next season is a sacrifice of risk Arsenal must passionately hug.
Alexis Sanchez 2/13 with Unibet to stay at Arsenal
So what do you think? Do you support Wenger’s decision to force Sanchez to finish his contract this coming season with Arsenal?
