Did Arsenal get the best out of Alexis swap deal with Man United?

Arsenal fans were calling Henrik Mhkitaryan a Man United reject when Arsene Wenger took the Armenian international as part of the swap deal that took Alexis Sanchez to Old Trafford, but straight away Mhki made an impact serving up three assists in the game against Everton.

He has had a torrid settling in process since then but last night he was back to his brilliant best. He scored his first goal for us and could easily have had more and looked far more productive than Alexis on a good day. He was very pleased to open his account in such a big game himself. “We played very well in the first half.” he said.

“I think we were not very focused in the second half and that’s why we couldn’t find our best game, but the most important thing is that we have a two-goal lead and a very good result and performance. It was very important that we didn’t concede a goal and we scored two in an away game. Now we have to be ready for the next game against Watford and then again, against Milan. Now we know that it won’t be easy in the second leg but we are going to give everything to go through,”

“It’s always special to play in a stadium like the San Siro, but it doesn’t matter if we play away. The atmosphere was great and I think every player likes to play in this kind of stadium and atmosphere. We didn’t pay attention to that, but we were thankful that our fans had travelled from London and all over the world to support us.”

Speaking about the goal, he said: “Of course I am very pleased, it was my first goal for Arsenal and I am very happy. But I have to keep doing the same now.”

So what do you think? Were we lucky to get Henrik while getting rid of the disruptive Alexis? Or is the jury still out?

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20 Comments

  1. Arsenal lost Sanchez’s creativity, goals, efforts and movements, but they had the peak Sanchez. Whereas Manchester United got an aging Sanchez that is apparently struggling with Mourinho’s system

    Mkhitaryan still has not shown his peak performance like his last season at Dortmund, but I feel he is improving and blending with his new teammates slowly. I wished Arsenal swapped Sanchez with Martial or Rashford which could be Sanchez’s replacement, but MU only wanted to give the underperforming Mkhitaryan

  2. I cannot help my self laugh when i watch Sanchez play for Man-U his all over the place in areas i have never seen him at Arsenal just to get a touch of the ball,

    if you think about it who ever left Arsenal have not met their new clubs expectations more then one season,

    our Henrik is slowly settling in at Arsenal with one or two outstanding games, his building confidence more and more with each game also it helps to have supporters on your side to boost that confidence,

    answer to your question yes we god the much better deal in the swap and i think the whole of Manchester knows it some feel ( City ) they donged the bullet and some feel gutted ( Unt )

  3. We lost out big time from a financial perspective, looking at Sanchez’s exit in context. I was very happy with Mkhitaryan, as I wanted him, and Aubameyang, when they were at Dortmund, but we lost out massively financially.

    Sanchez’s contract issues should have been resolved by the summer 2016, when he had two years left on his contract. If he wasn’t going to sign an extension then (which he didn’t), then he should have been sold. We could have got around £100 million for him, and then we also turned down £60 million with a year left. Instead we took a big gamble on a player valued at less than £30 million, that had been a huge flop at United.

    I would say we lost out on around £70 million when Sanchez left. Mkhitaryan has been very hit and miss so far, so time will tell whether he’ll be a success or not. Given that EVERY player is now regressing under Wenger, it’s likely Mkhitaryan will flop.

    1. Also, our performances, and more importantly, the results, have nosedived ever since Sanchez hasn’t been involved in the match day squads (I think it was 2/3 games of him completely missing, before leaving. I’ve always said he was carrying Arsenal, and we’ve seen the proof of that since his departure.

      1. You can thank the senile imposter for that comical piece of business. Say no to £60M in the summer and say yes to previously £30M rated but more likely at the time of the deal to be worth £15M Mkhitaryan.

        1. Wenger wanted Martial, Sven wanted Mkhi.
          Think we can thank Sven for the Mkhi signing but that wouldn’t be as good for the bash so you had to change reality to fit your delusion!

          1. Why would Man utd give us £70M rated Martial for want away Sanchez you dimwit? Man utd had all the leverage in that deal. Besides, are you trying to say Sven has more say in business than the £9M a year imposter? Think again, the imposter has Kroenke in his back pocket, hell, he even counters and over rules the CEO Gazidis.

      2. True, he was carrying Arsenal

        Now it is Ozil that is expected to be the focal point

        A true world class player should be able to carry his team, like Messi, Neymar and Sanchez

      3. I disagree dude, while Alexis is a top player when on form, he hasn’t been on form for us for a while, losing the ball a LOT which puts extra pressure on AFC defense, not the defense people would pick to cover for a player who lost the ball like Alexis.

        Would you want Kos and Mustafi to protect Alexis when he has gone out of pos and lost the ball? No DM thanks to the manager…

        Harsh on our CBs, they do have qualities… I should have said a Def organised by our Manager ;P hehe.

        We did lose Alexis and his determination to win but we also lost Giroud with his point saving goals.

        Alexis has 1 goal in 8 games for UTD, Giroud has played 5 games for Chavski and he has 1 goal.

        The Arsenal squad helped Alexis score more than he has for UTD, helped him be more of a player for us than UTD, who carried who?

        Alexis had fighting spirit plus selfish attitude and maybe that has been mixed up for carrying the club, he did very well the 3 previous seasons in scoring but he has always had the issue of holding onto the ball too long, AFC accommodated that and looked to make the most out of it. He wasn’t the scoring force he got to be known as while at Barca, he has since only scored 1 goal in 8 games for UTD.

        Wenger does have knowledge and when he performs at his better standard then he is a top manager, last night was an example, even while winning he was on the touchlines giving instructions to keep that lead…

        Shame he is inconsistent and doesn’t put in his best performances enough, same can be said for a lot of the players. We have some top players but inconsistent. I honestly do believe this is pointing more towards bad coaching over Alexis carrying us.

  4. Mkhi has had a couple of good games & a few to forget. Hopefully he’ll come good….
    As for Sanchez, he hasn’t done a great deal there & seeing the United fans slate him on Twitter after the Palace game, I have to say it brought a smile to my face! ?

    1. I guess he is struggling because Mourinho’s MU play more physically with their players’ height and speed, as compared to Wenger’s tiki-taka

      Since Sanchez came to MU, either Martial or Rashford has to go next season and I hope Arsenal can grab this chance

      1. I have been an open fan of Auba before he came to us, I am a closet Martial Fan, I can’t be open about it as he wears UTDs badge 😛 but as Gattuso would say, “I dream about him” XD

        Martial could really help us in a 433 formation.

        CM/DM/CM
        Auba/Laca/Martial

        If we can get a top DM, I mean a truly WC DM then it can mean the CMs could be Ozil and Mkhi against some opposition. Wilshere and Rambo done well against Milan and that is the other pair of CM, a combo of them 4… With a top manager who can get them to perform consistently well 😉
        Hmmm…. Forgot about Xhaka, prob for the best (=.=’)

        The pace, power and skill in that attack. We could aim to hit teams on counters while having the technique to play tiki-taka while dominating possession.

  5. im not gonna delude myself
    last season :
    sanchez 30 goals 16 assists
    bar mo salah kane hazard
    no one else is touching those level stats
    whether we get the most of mkhi- or manure with sanchez

    they got a better player

    but then would pierre have come?

    1. I don’t think Arsenal need Aubameyang, but they really need an inverted winger like Salah and a creative forward/ false nine that can drop back like Kane or Firmino

      Since Aubameyang has come, I hope Arsenal can benefit from his teamwork with Mkhitaryan and hopefully he is dominant in set-pieces like Giroud

    2. It could be argued that UTD got the better player if we ignore the present.

      1 goal in 8 games.

      For both.

      Form may be temp but if neither of them up their form then it will become who they are, currently the stats are equal.

      What does it say about us though?

      We got him to score more for us than Barca got him to score, he has scored more for us then he has demonstrated for UTD, even though we have had the lesser tactics.

  6. Sanchez is too egotistic to play in a team unless he is the centre of everything.

    Already clear that he’s causing unrest at Utd with martial and more specifically rashford being benched which is causing problems. Sanchez got slaughtered by the Utd fans this week for his misplaced passing during the game. It’s only a matter of time till he gets dropped or starts to throw temper tantrums on the pitch throwing his arms up in horror at his teammates. That is aside from the disruption he caused at AFC, the game of brinkmanship he tried to play with Ozil and the obvious influence he had on chamberlain.

    So good to get rid, should have done it months earlier and sold him to city for the 60m touted, but Mhiki has started reasonably well and given where we were at, I’d say we got a pretty good deal. Obviously talent wise it’s a loss, but if he’d stayed and gone for nothing, that would have been a worse outcome as I can’t imagine he’d have really got on with it for the rest of the season.

  7. miki has been… just fine. im still happy sanchez is gone. it was all getting very toxic. not that its been any less toxic lately anyways

  8. All parties to this transfer lost out. We lost a deal of money by not selling him at least one window earlier. United bought a superfluous, selfish to the bone, possession loser who has massively upset the club apple cart and most United fans too, judging by social media comments. Sanchez now finds his career massively stalled and is fast losing value and credibility . He sold his soul for yet more obscene money and will reap the stupidity now, of his greedy decision. In a year, when over thirty and universally recognised as a scum bag, United will barely able to give him away to any top club and he will languish on the bench, unpicked , unfulfilled and scorned by most fans anywhere. But he will be able to afford anything he wants; just like he also could when he was still a hero for us, two years ago. Fools all round!

  9. It was never a Sanchez v Mkhi ‘deal’!
    Sanchez was going either for nothing in Summer or something in January. We got something in Jan.
    Something is always better than nothing in my book. There is nothing to debate.

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