Sanchez not distracted by City interest, says Wenger
Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger is sure that Alexis Sanchez will not join Manchester City in January and will be unaffected by their attempt to buy him when the teams meet tomorrow. City offered £60million for the Chile forward in August.
Alex Oxlade-chamberlain’s performance against Liverpool was questioned earlier in the season amid the interest from Anfield but Wenger believes Sanchez is now approaching his best following a mixed start to the campaign.
“One thing you cannot fault in Alexis is his motivation,” he said. “The last two or three games, he has been very close.”
Asked if he expected City to make a fresh bid in January, Wenger said: “You say everybody thinks City will come in for him – I am part of everybody and I don’t think he will go. We need him here.”
The Frenchman also suggested that his Arsenal team would attack City after claiming that it could be far more dangerous to adopt a defensive game plan.
Wenger’s men won praise this season for how they contained Chelsea at Stamford Bridge and they were similarly resilient in their last meeting with Pep Guardiola’s team, when they prevailed 2-1 after extra time in the FA Cup semi-final.
City have scored 35 goals this season in only 10 Premier League games – 16 more than Arsenal.
“We will try to play our game – we will not hide, put it that way,” Wenger said. “You want to defend well but you cannot only be focused on defending. We want to play and have the ball and create dangerous situations. Sometimes the best way to defend is to attack.”
Asked if that would be too much of a risk given City’s form, Wenger said: “You have to accept the risk if you want to play football. You accept the gamble. It’s part of the game. You have to rate the risk. Is it a bigger risk only to defend if a team is very strong when they attack?”
With City unbeaten this season, Wenger was also asked whether Arsenal’s “Invincibles” feat of going an entire season unbeaten in 2003-4 could be replicated.
“It’s a bit early, only 10 games played and 28 to go,” he said. “That’s a long way. They’re in a good patch but look at Real Madrid and everything that was being said about them a few weeks ago. It shows you how fragile everything is in the game. In the two games against Napoli, you could see that Napoli in the first half gave them many problems. If you look back there have been many great teams in England and they are certainly another one.”