I wouldn’t have been happy with the way Sanchez has acted often... but there’s no way he’s hated at Arsenal
You may have assumed as much through the fallout from a few of their players not celebrating with him when he scored against Palace, but in professional football it doesn’t work like that.
Look, not everyone in a big squad gets on with each other.
There were a few players I really couldn’t stand in my time, but it didn’t stop me playing alongside them, working with them.
Obviously, there are few of the players at the Emirates that are hacked off with him and I don’t doubt there are a few who will be glad to see the back of him.
They may even be happy to see him go to City in January.
I don’t like the way he has acted at times this season. I know he wants to win and I know he gets frustrated that sometimes the others are not always on his wavelength.
But throwing his arms up and showing disdain for his team-mates is way out of order.
I’d have told him in the dressing room he only does that once... and I had a few team-mates who would have hammered the message home.
If he’s a proper bad egg, then you don’t want them at your club. I don’t remember many of those in my time at Liverpool or any other of my clubs, for that matter, and most of the time, it’s usually they’re just a bit of a wrong ’un.
When I was at Anfield, some people tried to make a similar story out of Stan Collymore’s arrival and eventual departure... but it was never like that.
We didn’t always get along. I’m not sure he’s ever going to send me a Christmas card, and I never understood him – and I don’t think too many of the rest of the lads did, either.
Yet none of us hated him, I’m pretty sure he wasn’t always happy at Liverpool, but far from hated it, too. That 4-3 game where he and I scored? I’m pretty sure we both celebrated with each other as if we were best mates.
You get groups in football clubs. These days it’s often on the national lines, with – say – the Brazilian and Spanish lads at Liverpool hanging out together, and maybe the English lads being a bit closer. In the past, it was the older lads and the younger ones.
Not everyone can get on. You can’t be stuck in a group of 30 people and like every single one of them, but so long as the manager generates a decent team spirit then it doesn’t really matter.
With Sanchez, I’ll bet a few of his team-mates are thinking he is in it just for himself – and they may well be right.
He obviously wants out, and he’s not making much of a secret of his feelings that the team isn’t good enough. Again, I’d have told him straight about that, But I can honestly say if any player in any team I played for wanted out, then it would not have altered the way I thought about them in the slightest.
Not everyone is loyal, not everyone is treated properly at a club. People have reasons and players leave all the time. If you can’t handle that, you shouldn’t be in football.
Steve Mcmanaman (inset, with me) was one of my closest mates at Liverpool and he left on a free transfer to Real Madrid.
I was gutted he went, but only because he was a top-class player and we were a worse team without him.
Sanchez has stuck to his contract and he’s never chucked it in.
OK, he was pretty diabolical at Anfield at the end of August, but then so were the rest of the Arsenal team.
You want the morale to be right, but you also want your top players contributing and he’s their top scorer, isn’t he?
Players don’t get on, it happens.