Arsenal’s new player, Alexis Sanchez has opened up about the reason he signed for the North London club. He spoke to press men after the 0-1 loss to Monaco in the just concluded Emirates Cup on Sunday.
The 25-year-old Chilean, who received a thunderous welcome when he made his debut for the Gooners on Saturday against Benfica as a 75th minute substitute for Joel Campbell, reportedly rejected offers from Liverpool and Juventus to join Arsenal in a £35m deal, the club’s second highest transfer.
When asked about the involvement of Arsene Wenger in his decision to join Arsenal, he said: ‘‘I was told he is a manager you can learn a lot with, he wants to achieve great things in football and that helped me make the decision to sign for Arsenal’’.
Coming from Barcelona with a similar tip-tap kind of football as Arsenal, his blending with the Gunners’ style of play is expectedly imminent and his integration into the team shouldn’t be a problem with a good number of Spanish speaking players who would help in his settling down.
Thierry Henry, Alex Song, Alexander Hleb and Cesc Fabregas are players who have moved from Arsenal to Barcelona in recent times and didn’t find it hard to play the tip-tap way at Barcelona.
However, the Chilean is the first to move in the opposite direction, in a long time and he has expressed that the style of play is very similar to his and that of his national side.
Again, in his words: ‘‘Arsene Wenger’s style of play is a little bit like that of the Chilean national team. Therefore I am used to it. Arsenal plays very well, they play good football and that fits my style. That is why I came here’’.
Sanchez who watched Yaya Sanogo net 4 goals against Benfica, must not only justify the huge amount spent in bringing him to London but must also start to deliver the goods immediately for obviously Olivier Giroud needs some time to get back to the form that got him score 16 goals last season. Many have argued that Olivier Giroud has so far not lived up to expectation as an Arsenal attacker.
Arsenal has a reputation of making average attackers very high goal scorers because the style of play creates a lot of chances. Robin Van Persie and Thierry Henry are good examples of players who were never traditional goal scorers at the initial stages of their careers but got transformed at Arsenal and became the highest goal scorers in the EPL at different times.
These players came to Arsenal little known and left Arsenal with cult-like followership that are typical of Legends.
Sanchez story is almost like the opposite of Henry and Van Persie because he came to Arsenal with some feathers to his cap.
He joined Barcelona from Udinese aged 22 and was already the Serie A’s best player of the season before, scoring 12 times in 31 games for his side.
For Barcelona, he made 88 appearances and netted 39 times, a feat many believe is commendable considering the presence of Lionel Messi, who gets all Barcelona’s goals.
Arsenal provides another chance for Alexis Sanchez to shine and rise to a legendary status just like Thierry Henry. He has got at Arsenal, all the resources required for excellent goal scoring record in the array of stars and goal providers like Santi Cazorla, Tomas Rosicky and Mesut Ozil.
All the best Alexis!
Written by Tayo Amosu
