Arsenal: Alexis Sanchez, Sergio Aguero Debate Opens Sad Narrative

Arsenal has the best player in the Premier League with Alexis Sanchez, yet the former best player in the league has his team higher up the table. What gives?

Sergio Aguero used to be the headliner of the Premier League. He was regarded as the best striker and the best overall player and he had the stats to back it up, with a lot of it coming against Arsenal. But times, they are a-changin’. At least in one regard.

The MIrror investigated the statistical differences between the reigning champion, Aguero, and the (sort of) new(er) kid on the block, Alexis Sanchez.

The Chilean should be the undisputed best player in the Premier League, but his sinking team takes away from the spotlight and asks for it to be cast on others.

It raises some pretty obvious questions. Why can Aguero fall off the best-player charts while his team stays where they have always been while Alexis Sanchez is only getting better yet his team is dying on a vine?

There is no easy answer, but it does provide a clear path forward for Arsene Wenger (if he stays…) and the Gunners. City did not settle with Aguero. They had a fantastic centerpiece, but they never stopped building around him in the attack. They brought in Leroy Sane, Kevin de Bruyne, Nolito, Raheem Sterling, Gabriel Jesus and more. And those new signings were joining David Silva, who was already there. It’s a mixture of seasoned veterans and young stars eager to prove themselves.

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That’s more names than you can fit in a starting XI.

Alexis Sanchez, meanwhile, joined Mesut Ozil and a handful of long-unproven Gunners like Theo Walcott, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Alex Iwobi.

And that is all that Alexis has had to work with since joining. The attack is not expanding around him, it is flat-lining and leaning on Alex more than ever. So while the Chilean may grow and improve and continue his upward trajectory, no one else is. Everyone else is sinking with the club. Even Mesut Ozil.

It is hesitancy to force his beloved “children” into tough positions, potentially out of the club that prevents Wenger from being like other managers and ruthlessly collecting the best players available to make the best team possible?

It seems the most likely.

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But at the end of the day, in the modern era of football, that is what is required and the growth of Alexis Sanchez and the simultaneous plummet of his club opens that narrative yet again of how Arsenal has fallen short.

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