Martin Keown has told Arsene Wenger that he should not bow to Alexis Sanchez’s demands, with the Chilean eager to play every minute of every game. Sanchez joined Arsenal from Barcelona in the summer of 2014, and has quickly earned himself a key role for the Gunners.
The forward missed six weeks of the current season after struggling with a hamstring injury, and the Arsenal boss was criticised for overusing the star when he was struggling with his fitness.
Martin Keown has now claimed that Sanchez is hard to control, and that he demands to be on the pitch for every minute possible.
“I get the feeling that Sanchez can be a player who is hard to handle,” the former Arsenal defender said.
“The last time I visited the training ground he was on a day off and he had actually come in to train.
“He is always so desperate to play and that can be quite tricky to manage.”
Keown went onto talk about the former Barcelona star’s reaction to being substituted at the weekend.
“But I wouldn’t take too much notice of that reaction – sometimes you don’t want your players to be happy about coming off.
“When I played we all wanted to play every minute and that’s the case with Sanchez.
“As long as you don’t go over the top I think it’s ok to show your disappointment.”
Losing Sanchez to injury in November was a huge loss and even Wenger admitted that he had been stretched to the limit, especially as we sat only two points off of the top of the table at that point.
Does Wenger need to put his foot down and rest Alexis against his wishes?