In the week before Christmas, just as Arsenal were beginning to slip away from the top for the first time this season, Arsene Wenger was asked why his teams have faded at crucial points in their campaigns. He was asked about leaders. More specifically, he was asked whether Alexis Sanchez is a leader, the type of figure that Arsenal have lacked since last winning the Premier League in 2003-04.
This was obviously something of a loaded question, given the ongoing uncertainty over the Chilean’s contract, and Wenger answered with an element of qualification.
“He is a leader in his way on the football pitch,” the Arsenal manager said in a news conference. “Because he is not scared of anybody. That’s a kind of leadership.”
Sanchez is also not scared to express his anger when he feels Arsenal are letting standards slip. That’s a kind of leadership they have been accused of lacking in the past few years.
It could be seen from Sanchez after the draw with Tottenham Hotspur at White Hart Lane last March. Although he had scored the equaliser to make it 2-2 — a positive result in the circumstances — the forward refused to see it like that. He made it very clear what he thought. The second the final whistle went, Sanchez kicked the ball away in frustration. And there were similar reactions after the 2-1 defeats to Everton and Manchester City.
Sanchez, in short, isn’t the type of player to turn his back on a corner late in a tight game in the way teammate Mesut Ozil did at Goodison Park.
“Sanchez surprises you a little bit because of his size,” Wenger said in that same news conference. “You do not expect such a dynamic, strong, winning attitude. It’s his game.”
It’s also a trait that reminds of Roy Keane’s famously unforgiving approach to winning, and exactly the type of attitude that Arsenal used to match with players like Patrick Vieira and Emmanuel Petit in Wenger’s best years. It is the type of standard-setting that tends to eventually be influential and infectious, and is necessary for any title winners. It can lift a team and eventually produce the extra effort that can make a difference.
Sources close to some Arsenal players told ESPN FC that Sanchez already has had a response from many of his teammates, who are aspiring to match his level of passion.
That is why it is so crucial that Arsenal secure Sanchez’s future. He is arguably the most important player at Arsenal for reasons beyond his outrageous talent and it is difficult to find a player with such a combination of quality and utter commitment in the Premier League or elsewhere in global football.
Wenger deserves some credit for fully releasing those qualities in Sanchez. The 28-year-old had come to something of an impasse in his club career when Barcelona decided to sell him in 2013-14. He hadn’t really moved on to the next level from the livewire form shown at Udinese before going to Camp Nou in 2011.
Barcelona sources told ESPN FC that there was always a slight mismatch between the player’s best qualities and the basic club philosophy. When a forward gets the ball, for example, the Catalan club’s coaches would generally expect a player’s first response to be to look for the next pass, to apply an element of pausa (pause) to the game. It was how they trained.
It was not, however, how Sanchez was trained. Barcelona’s coaches found that his first response was always to try and burst forward. That way of playing was never going to be maximised in an attack that had Lionel Messi and Neymar and generally required more intricacy. It was also something Sanchez’s former boss Pep Guardiola referenced before City’s win over Arsenal.
“It is normal when you play with Messi that people think he is not at his level, as the highlight is always Leo,” the Catalan said in his news conference. “But Alexis helped us a lot and played well. I think the position that he is in now, as a striker, is perfect for him. It suits him perfectly.
“In Barcelona maybe I didn’t help him too much as I like the wingers wide, and he can do that, but he plays more between the lines closer to the goal. He is a class, class player, but now I think he is playing really well.”
Arsenal have finally released his best quality. They have found the ideal outlet for that attitude and endless running by playing him up front. However, his current contract impasse is a new acid test for the club.
Sources close to the squad told ESPN FC that Sanchez’s main concern is over Arsenal’s ability to win the top competitions. Coming to the peak of his career, he feels a responsibility to claim the medals that properly reflect his talent. Yet, if Arsenal were to let Sanchez go, it would reflect a lax attitude to winning — that they weren’t doing everything in their power to keep such an influential player.
If they did move everything to keep him, though, it would be a sign they want to maximise his talent. It could be one of the most important decisions in the final stage of Wenger’s time at Arsenal. That is how important Sanchez has become.
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