Arsenal: Looks like Alexis Sanchez has to be the hero again

Arsenal’s situation with Alexis Sanchez may be a bit tense, which makes it a bit unfortunate that he is going to come back trying to be the hero again.

I had this awesome scenario all built up in my head. Arsenal were going to handily beat Stoke City with some magnificent attacking football, all while Alexis Sanchez sat there and watched and when he returned next week against Liverpool, he would be walking into a well-oiled attacking machine that was doing just fine without him.

Obviously, that didn’t happen. Arsenal’s loss to Stoke was full of staleness and, as much as it sucks to admit, the same old, same old.

Meaning that come match week three, against Liverpool, something is going to have to change and according to reports, that something could be the return of Alexis Sanchez. Which we should all obviously be very excited about. I just wish it was under different circumstances.

Alexis has not hit his frustrations with the club when they do things like what they did against Stoke. He can be seen on the pitch flailing his arms and spouting off, usually in the direction of Aaron Ramsey (who, by the way, put in a great day of work against Stoke).

He is going to see himself as the hero yet again and he is going to feel the need to rescue the club from another paltry performance. Which has two negative drawbacks. First of all, Alexis’s forced heroism doesn’t always work. Especially if he isn’t fully fit.

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Second of all, that mentality of having to rescue the team (again) has no doubt contributed to his thinly-veiled desire to leave.

It would have been a different story if he could have returned to a team that, as mentioned, was doing just fine without him, was putting away opposition they should be putting away (Stoke) and such. Then he could smile a bit and believe that things were different and this team really had something going.

It will be hard to sell that to him when 1-0 losses like that happen.

Alexis is not likely to stay past this year. The club would have to do something incredibly special to sway his opinion. The cornerstone of what they could have done was performing well without him, which they clearly didn’t do.

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Now, it’s going to be an even tougher battle to keep the Chilean, mostly because anything they do will likely be highly influenced by Alexis himself. Or at least credited to him. Which just adds to that sense of superiority.

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