We have all seen how Alexis Sanchez can look totally knackered at the end of a game, and then three days later yet again run around like he has had a month’s rest in the Caribean, and it has not escaped Arsene Wenger’s attention either. “When he does something he does it 100 per cent,” Le Prof said.
“So he finishes and you think, ‘He’s dead now.’ But then he recovers and gives 100 per cent again, so you always see signs of exhaustion, but it’s not because two days later he’s fine.”
“His style is very explosive and a very committed style,”
“Vardy is a bit similar. They go when they go. They are like the lion, he has to catch the animal in the first 200 metres. If he doesn’t get there, after he’s dead.
“They are these kind of killers. When they go, it is to kill and after they have to stop.”
But yet again, Alexis has ended a game with a worry about his hamstring, and it is becoming such a regular thing now that Wenger must seriously consider giving our duracell bunny a chance for it to heal. “I will have to assess that a bit later,” he said.
“It might not be the best moment to rest Alexis, but I don’t know. He had a little hamstring alarm, but we will see how he recovers from that
“I take information, especially from medical people who know him and treat him everyday, and after that we will look at his overall recovery as well.”
Although we have had lots of scares, Wenger denies that our ‘killer lion’ has actually needed to take treatment yet this season. “No, he’s not been injured. We come back to that problem and the more you are injured, the more there is a chance to be injured again.
“That’s where we come back to top-level sportsmen.
“That kind of mixture of flexibility, sense of how far can you go with the pushing, that sensitivity to how much and as well when you have to ease off on your bodyweight.
That’s linked with co-ordination and they get less injured.
“His resistance is remarkable. What is also remarkable is that he goes to South America, he comes back Thursday night and on Saturday he can play without a problem, even if he’s jet-lagged. He would have been a perfect tennis player.
“These are not players who have the traditional academic education that we give now to the players at 15 or 16. They have a physio every day. They are more street players, not pampered.”
Let’s be honest, we don’t really want to see Arsenal line up without our star man, but the season is long, and just about evey other player has had a rest in some form or other. Is it Sanchez’s turn to take a breather this weekend?