Arsenal: Brutal Alexis Sanchez honesty relieving and troubling

The day before Arsenal completed their thrilling match against Leicester City, we were hit with a sobering admission about Alexis Sanchez.

We’ve been asking for honesty about the Alexis Sanchez/Arsenal situation for awhile now, I just never expected it to come like this. In an interview with SFR, Arsene Wenger said outright that he was “not optimistic about an extension” with Alexis Sanchez.

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Arsenal nation has been waiting on standby to know what the future holds for Alexis Sanchez. His contract saga has not gone promisingly and it’s easy to see why so many people are extrapolating the idea that he will be leaving the club as soon as he possibly can.

Just reading it again is incredibly sobering and also brutal in its honesty, but I suppose this is what we asked for – some clarity. Some sort of definitive information one way or the other so we could stop relying on unfounded tabloids so much.

Of course there is still time to change his mind, and I think that’s what Wenger is going for by not signing him, but aside from that dangerous hope, I think we also need to embrace that it is kind of relieving, despite how brutal it is.

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Not least of all because the match against Leicester showed so much promise in this attack, and that attack was missing several weapons, namely Alexis and Thomas Lemar (ha).

But more than that, at least we have a path forward. We know that, while this certainly isn’t what any of us would have wished for, the way is clear. We have to get on without him, and the sooner we can do that, the better.

Not just that, but seeing him during the game, wearing a full suit, nursing his “abdominal strain” and sitting in the upper decks, it didn’t look like he was having all that much fun. Of course, they only found the time to show him when Leicester were pulling off one of many leads, so it’s hard to say what he was doing when the Gunners came back.

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It’s a shame that this is how it is all going to happen, but as I said, something about having clarity makes the situation more bearable. Now, if we manage to sway him into staying, it feels like a bonus, because all signs point to a departure that maybe we aren’t so poorly equipped to handle after all.