Why Arsenal Did Brilliantly By Hanging On To Sanchez

Picture source: Daily Mail

The dust has settled over a week now on the transfer window deadline day. As of course there were major shocks in the “very-nearly” deals and none more so than Alexis Sanchez’s proposed move to Man City.

In the shape of the Chilean international, Man City would’ve signed one of the premier league’s most explosive forwards. But in the same breath, it must be said the loss for Arsenal would have been greater than City’s gain. In keeping the star man at the club at least until January at the earliest, the north Londoners might just have salvaged their season.

Arsenal have played only 4 games this season and for the bulk of them, they have looked unconvincing. That would actually be an understatement to describe their performance against Liverpool a little over 2 weeks ago when they hammered 4-0 at Anfield. Sanchez played that day for the first time this season and he looked noticeably disillusioned with the game his team were playing.

This culminated with a reported transfer request only the following day. One can only imagine that the game against Liverpool was the last straw for him. It had been well documented throughout the second half of last season that Sanchez had looked visibly upset during games. Particularly when in which his team were under-performing and he looked like the dog with the most fight in him.

Picture source: Daily Express

His quality cannot be denied one bit. He’s a talismanic player and was the scorer of 30 arsenal goals across all competitions. But with only 1 year remaining on his current deal and an ominous sense that he has no plans to sign a new deal whatsoever. It does therefore beg the question: should Arsenal have sold him in the summer window?

A player of Sanchez’s quality, perhaps in maybe many people’s opinions isn’t that much behind the quality that £197-million-man Neymar Jr has. Considering Man City had bid £60 million for Sanchez and this is under triple the amount of money that Neymar Jr joined PSG for, it does look like a pretty good deal. Keep in mind that Sanchez is free to negotiate a pre-contract in January, to join any team he likes for free at the end of his contract. And by FIFA’s rule book, Arsenal would be powerless to intervene.

Losing a player as exceptional as Alexis Sanchez can be looked at as too great a risk to take. Even though he is in the last year of his current contract, Arsenal would fetch a very good price tag for him.

As Arsene Wenger put perfectly himself earlier when speaking to beIN Sports last week, "You take a Sanchez into the final year of his contract, you sacrifice £60 to £70 million income and at the end of the season you will have to buy somebody for that amount of money.”

Now £60 million or £70 million is by no means a small amount of money, even in today’s ludicrous transfer market. So to put simply, Arsenal are prepared to lose out on getting around £60 million because they want to keep Sanchez. Additionally in a near-certain future when Sanchez has left the club for free, Arsenal will need to try to get a player of Sanchez’s calibre back in the club and will therefore spend £60 million; more or less to sign that replacement.

Picture source: 101 Great Goals

Arsenal may even need to dig deeper to purchase players as another key player Mesut Ozil could be leaving for nothing as his deal is also up at the same time as Sanchez’s.

But nevertheless, resisting the temptation to recoup some cash by selling Sanchez or even Ozil would have been difficult but was necessary. Arsenal at the moment aren’t a club who would find it easy to attract top class players without Champions League football to offer. This is despite the fact they were able to sign Lacazette for £46 million earlier in July.

At this instant imagine being Wenger, agreeing to sell your best player then not managing to sign a good-enough replacement. This was quite literally the case on deadline day when City had reportedly agreed a deal to sign Sanchez. However that deal fundamentally relied on Arsenal managing to sign Thomas Lemar from Monaco that same day. It is understood that a £92 million bid was accepted but Lemar himself rejected the move. Not that Monaco were too keen on letting him go anyway.

With the Lemar deal falling apart before Wenger’s eyes, the exact same thing happened to Alexis with his move to Manchester collapsing. Sanchez had been away with Chile on international duty at this time and national team-mate Claudio Bravo had said himself yesterday that Sanchez “went from happiness to bitterness” as a result.

But Arsenal merely could not agree to this deal. Man City have just recently obliterated Liverpool 5-0 a couple of days ago at the Etihad Stadium. Their attack contained Sergio Aguero, Gabriel Jesus, Kevin De Bruyne and David Silva. Let’s not forget Leroy Sane came off the bench to score twice as well as Bernardo Silva starting the game on the bench too. Raheem Sterling, who contributed double figures in both goals and assists last season for City; was suspended.

Picture source: Daily Mail

One can only imagine how terrifying Man City would be if the transfer for Sanchez had gone through. As that game would have been Sanchez’s debut, one can easily imagine that the home team could have scored even more goals past a fragile Liverpool defence. An attack that excellent could also do similar damage to other top-6 opponents but admittedly Liverpool have arguably the worst defence of any of the top teams. So let’s not get carried away.

Considering City manager Pep Guardiola had been frustrated with the lack of clinical finishing from his side last season, a player like Sanchez might just have been the difference between City lifting the trophy at the end of the season or missing out on that glory. And just as City would be that much better a team, Arsenal would be even so much more worse off. As all likelihood a replacement for Sanchez never would’ve arrived especially so late in the window.

Luckily for Arsenal, that scenario is not a reality. For the time being that is.