Alexis Sanchez

Alexis Sanchez future: Arsenal to Manchester United to Inter – what next for Chile forward?

By Joe Townsend

19:30 · SUN May 24, 2020

When Manchester United swapped Henrikh Mkhitaryan for Alexis Sanchez they thought they were signing one of the world’s best attacking players at the peak of his powers. Joe Townsend looks at the forward’s career before and since January 2018.

Alexis Sanchez’s switch from Arsenal to Manchester United, with Henrikh Mkhitaryan going the other way, was one of the biggest Premier League deals of the 2018 January transfer window, and unusually it was a month in which there were a lot; Philippe Coutinho, Virgil van Dijk, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Aymeric Laporte, to name a few.

What set this move apart was the public nature of United and Manchester City’s battle to sign him and the financial consequences that had – something they continue to foot an enormous bill for at Old Trafford, despite the forward being on loan at Inter Milan.

Sanchez joins Manchester United

Sanchez had actually been agonisingly close to joining Manchester City for £60m just five months before he clinched a move to their nearest rivals. He would have been reunited with Pep Guardiola, his coach at Barcelona, had Arsenal’s bid to secure Monaco winger Thomas Lemar been successful.

With Sanchez’s contract expiring in the summer of 2018, by the time January came around the Gunners were willing to sell at a reduced price, strengthening the Chilean’s position when it came to negotiating his own terms.

A straight shootout between the two Manchester clubs ensued.

City ultimately withdrew from the race, citing excessive wage demands, and the 29-year-old joined United on a four-and-and-half-year contract worth more than £400,000 per week. Factor in image rights and signing-on fees and it’s believed to average out at closer to £600,000.

But they genuinely believed it was a good deal.

"He was cheap, wasn't he?" said United manager Jose Mourinho at the time.

"A free transfer. He was free. For that price, he is fantastic. I think everyone thinks the same in this country.

"I think everyone has to agree that he is a fantastic player. He has great quality and scores goals, makes assists, has a good attitude when the team loses the ball, he's good at set pieces. I think really he is one of the best attacking players in the world."

However, it really hasn’t worked out that way.

What were United signing?

Alexis Sanchez joined Arsenal for £30m in 2014

Much is spoken of how bad Alexis Sanchez has been since he joined Manchester United, and don’t worry we’ll get to that, but it’s easy to forget how good he was before.

Let's touch on his time at Barcelona briefly, just to emphasise how his performances were sustained over a six-and-a-half-year period.

Statistically: 122 appearances, 41 goals, 25 assists.

That looks good, but not amazing. Well, almost a third of his Barca appearances were as a substitute, which can happen when at different times David Villa, Neymar, Pedro, Andres Iniesta and Cesc Fabregas are competing with you to play either side of Lionel Messi.

Sanchez contributed a goal or assist every 72 minutes during three seasons as a Barcelona player. That is some return.

And then at Arsenal: 166 appearances, 80 goals, 41 assists.

Over a period of more than six years he averaged a goal or assist in every 1.5 appearances. That is why Manchester United were willing to pay out such astronomical wages.

The argument was made at the time of his transfer that Sanchez’s form had dropped since his failed move to Manchester City.

While that may have been accurate in terms of his all-round performance, eight goals and three assists in 22 appearances that season wasn’t miles away, and certainly shouldn't have been enough to raise alarm bells.

What did United get?

Alexis Sanchez has struggled with injuries since leaving Arsenal in January 2018

Having played only half-an-hour of competitive football in the three weeks prior to arriving at Old Trafford, Sanchez was afforded a fair settling in period.

There was the odd glimpse of encouragement but no more than that, and quickly the adjustment time required extension. All the while, a selection of the big money January signings at other Premier League clubs were making noteworthy impressions, so there had to be more to it.

No World Cup with Chile and a full pre-season with his new team would surely do the trick. That didn't turn out to be the case.

His slow start, which produced three goals and five assists, would appear bountiful in comparison to the following campaign, during which he scored just one league goal.

All in all, Sanchez's United stats make for grim reading. During 18 months at Old Trafford, he made 45 appearances, scoring five goals and providing nine assists. He started 21 matches, but completed the full 90 minutes on just ten occasions.

During his time at Arsenal, he was only substituted 15 times during his 153 starts.

There is no doubt that players will be substituted more when they aren’t performing, that’s obvious, but for Sanchez to have been taken off on just four fewer occasions as a United player than as an Arsenal one, when starting 132 more games for the Gunners, is truly galling.

Why was Sanchez so bad at Old Trafford?

Alexis Sanchez is expected to return to Man Utd this summer after his loan at Inter Milan ends

So I’ve told you what you already knew – Alexis Sanchez was rubbish for Manchester United. But is it all his fault?

There can’t be just one reason why, especially given that this was not a player degrading over time. In the summer of 2017 he was basking in one of his greatest seasons, this decline happened remarkably quickly.

We can start by looking at his role. At both Barcelona and Arsenal he was part of teams playing attacking, possession-based football. While in Catalunya he predominantly played on the right, and in north London it was the left or through the middle, the actual position was irrelevant. The style and personnel is what mattered.

The creativity in Barcelona’s team is well-known and he was slotting in alongside other brilliant players. Although Arsenal were not on that level, the way they played was just as well-suited to Sanchez.

Mesut Ozil and Olivier Giroud are defined by what they provide for their team-mates, and that suited the Chilean perfectly. For all of Lionel Messi's record-breaking goalscoring, his creativity is just as big an asset.

While Romelu Lukaku, Anthony Martial and Marcus Rashford are excellent players in their own right, their characteristics simply did not marry up with United's new arrival. Perhaps the only player in the squad who could combine effectively with him was Juan Mata, someone in and out of the team.

The sudden change in two major statistics after Sanchez joined Manchester United tells you just how different the football was under a Jose Mourinho counter-attacking team, and how it meant their marquee signing was simply not involved as much as he was used to.

He averaged a fraction under four shots per game during his time at Arsenal – at United it dropped to 1.7.

At Arsenal, he would complete on average 45 passes per game – at United it was 19.

For the Gunners, he spent most of his time on the left of a front three, the same position he was primarily utilised in at Old Trafford. That is where the similarities end.

The system and style he was slotting in to bore no resemblance to what he’d been accustomed to. While Arsene Wenger’s team would be criticised for their marauding full-backs’ lack of defensive awareness, it was that kind of gay abandon that would afford Sanchez the space he so craved.

At United, defenders were there to defend. That often resulted in double coverage of an attacking wide player.

His time in Manchester will of course be recalled as a harrowing, costly failure but it will also be remembered for the number of times he was so easily dispossessed in his final appearances.

This player, so renowned for his pace, power and dribbling had been reduced to a meek has-been that now turned back to make the easy pass, in fear of being tackled. His confidence had been totally broken.

Loan spell at Inter Milan

Alexis Sanchez has missed the majority of the Italian season through injury

Some of you have probably been reading this in frustration at me describing Alexis Sanchez’s time at Manchester United in the past tense, as he is still under contract with the club until the summer of 2022 so it may well not be over yet.

He is currently exiled to Italy and things have not gone any better for him there. Something I haven’t really mentioned are the niggling injuries that didn’t help him settle in during those 18 months in Manchester, and that’s continued to be an issue for him in Milan.

With only a goal and two assists from 12 games on loan so far, you wouldn’t expect Inter to be pursuing a permanent deal for a player earning more than £400,000 per week. So desperate to get rid, his parent club are thought to be paying 75% of those wages.

It really is anyone’s guess as to what will happen next. Prior to football’s suspension United were on the upswing under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, but it was he who sent Sanchez packing in the first place.

The Norwegian is slowly evolving his team's style, and although they remain far more effective on the counter attack when teams don’t sit deep against them, Odion Ighalo is about as close to an Olivier Giroud-style, unselfish centre-forward as you’re likely to come across.

But I think I’m clutching at straws for Sanchez here.