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Alexis Sanchez One Of The World’s Best, But We Must Not Get Over Reliant
After yet another wonderful performance from Alexis Sanchez against Stoke at the weekend, in which the Chilean winger provided 2 goals and an assist, it is very easy to get carried away with his performances so far and say that we can achieve anything with him in our starting XI. But what if he was to get injured? Would we be so confident again of making the top 4 again?
Alexis Sanchez has been involved in more goals than any other player in the EPL so far, with 12 goals and 7 assists since the start of the season. Given that he had a slow start and many were worried that he would not quite fit into the team it has been a wonderful run of form for the former Barcelona man, and he is one of the favourites for the Premier League player of the year award.
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However my only worry is that we will become over-reliant on the winger. Thankfully this is not something that has happened already, but I do get the impression that some of the players may begin to relax too much on the pitch because they feel that Sanchez will come up with something to dig us out of any situation. Cazorla is playing well at the moment but apart from him I don’t feel many of our players are currently running at full capacity and if he does get injured then we will begin to wonder who can replace Alexis Sanchez’s goals and work.
In the 3 seasons he was at Barcelona he missed 22 games for the Spanish giants, and considering he was not playing overly much in this time that does seem to be a relatively high rate of picking up injuries. With Ozil just returning, Walcott seemingly as brittle as glass and Chamberlain still developing the composure he would need to become a top winger/striker I am worried that we are over-reliant on Alexis Sanchez.
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Granted this is all hypothetical, and it may just be the fact that because Sanchez is playing so well it is impossible for others to get the telling touches and contributions to the team that they would if he wasn’t playing.
Despite his good form I hope that Wenger begins to rest Sanchez and manage his fitness if he intends to challenge for the league and Champions League towards the end of the season. Other players will need to perform in his absence and it could give players like Ozil and Walcott a kick up the backside in regard to the fact they need to perform to make the starting XI, because I don’t know if anyone’s noticed but we have got an overload of attacking midfielders at the moment.
But to put it bluntly Alexis Sanchez is our best player in a long time, and he’s actually performing, and whilst I don’t agree with wholesale squad rotation for the sake of it, squad management when you’re attempting to challenge for 3 trophies is essential and having been involved in so many of our best passages of play this season I hope Wenger has a contingency plan for a few of those matches to be played without our star man.
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