Piano man who hit all wrong notes...
WHEN Manchester United beat rivals City to sign Alexis Sanchez in January 2018, it was greeted as a coup. The Chilean celebrated becoming the Premier League’s best-paid player on £400,000 a week by playing Glory, Glory Man Utd on a piano. Unfortunately, that’s as good as it got. Sanchez scored only five goals in 45 appearances before joining Inter Milan on loan last August. It’s believed United continue to pay 75 per cent of his salary — nearly £14.5million. The cost of Sanchez’s wages now stand at £47.6million — more than £9m per United goal. ‘I welcomed Alexis Sanchez coming to the club. He was tenacious and a forward who could play anywhere across the line,’ admitted Gary Neville on Sky Sports. ‘But he’s been an absolute disaster.’
The question is, what happens next? Sanchez, now 31, could return to Old Trafford, go out on loan again or United can find a permanent buyer. All have potential difficulties.
Sanchez would not welcome playing in Manchester again, not that manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer would see him as a regular anyway. Since Sanchez left, the United boss has transformed the team around younger players such as Marcus Rashford, Bruno Fernandes and Mason Greenwood.
Sanchez has shown improved form of late in Italy to tempt Inter into making the move permanent. The stumbling block is that United want £15m and Inter are reluctant to spend that much. Another loan is not ideal for United if they would have to continue paying some of the wages.
The £47.6 million question is why hasn’t it worked out for Sanchez and United? He was, after all, regarded as one of the best players in the world at Barcelona and Arsenal.
Undoubtedly, some of it is his fault. He’d gone off the boil in his final few months at Arsenal and found you can’t turn form on and off. United
fans were exasperated by how often he lost the ball and he couldn’t find a settled position on the left or as a No 10.
In mitigation, United were at a low ebb themselves. Though the team finished second the season Sanchez joined, Jose Mourinho was critical of his players and then turned on the board when he didn’t sign a centre-half. He was sacked at the end of 2018, with Solskjaer brought in to introduce change.
By this time, injuries were becoming a factor for Sanchez. He’d had hamstring and thigh problems and missed two months in early 2019 with a knee problem. Solskjaer decided he needed players he could rely on and last summer the subsidised move to Serie A was in everyone’s interest.