Wenger to anger Arsenal fans and BENCH Alexis Sanchez?

Even though Alexis Sanchez has just returned to north London after an energy sapping return trip to South America where he played one home game for Chile and the other World Cup qualifier in Bolivia, you would expect Arsene Wenger top make the striker one of the first names on the team list to face AFC Bournemouth at the Emirates stadium this weekend.

I have a sneaking feeling, though, that the Chilean could be on the subs bench at the start of our latest Premier League match. There is a good chance, after all, that the mind of Alexis is not quite in the right place after all the transfer saga during the summer which ended with the collapse of his proposed move to Man City on deadline day.

Not only that, but the 28-year old is not in good form and so far in the one club game against Liverpool and the two games for Chile Alexis has been a shadow of the player we know he can be. There is even the suggestion that Sanchez is not even fully fit, with a The Mirror reporting that a former member of the Chilean coaching staff has blasted the Arsenal striker for his fitness levels and condition.

Jose Sulantay said, “I saw him gone. I saw him out of physical shape, totally. He’s fatter than normal.”

Normally you would want Sanchez on the pitch even if he was not fully fit but with his poor form and questions over his frame of mind, would it not be better to leave him on the bench and use him as an impact sub if needed?

D.N.

20 Comments

    1. In all honesty, who cares??! Its not like we are going to compete for the league. Ever. We are leicsrter it seems.. I want to see ox succeed. Im looking forward to watching liverpool play this weekend!

  1. Off topic am sad about our transfer window but am glad that the club did not panic buy to appease us. It doesn’t help at all as we get average players on high wages and they dont even improve the quality of the team.
    Very tough season ahead though might be worse than last season

  2. Almost can’t be bothered which names are playing and which are on the bench. With Wenger we have no chance to compete for the top spots.
    And with Sanchez he Wenger is in a very tricky position. He has promised the world a more motivated player, because he is in his last contract year. So far this has shown to be completely wrong. Sanchez is probably in the worst shape in his career. Playing him might satisfy some fans, but what will the rest of the team think, if a Wenger plays him? He doesn’t want to play for Arsenal & he is out of shape, and still he is picked to play!
    What a mess.

  3. Just read “Winning ugly is not the way forward for Arsenal – Wenger” (Goal.com)…

    “Of course you question your decisions, your preparation, and everything. We have played three games, there are 35 to go. We have the quality to respond, it’s a good opportunity to show that [Liverpool] was an accident,” the Frenchman told a media conference.
    “I never understood what constituted a crisis. It’s important you focus on what’s in front of you, the quality of performance can change from one week to another.
    “If you take the history of the game, the biggest winners in the game… if you have to play ugly to convince people to win then it’s the wrong debate.
    “The biggest teams in the world have played football. Brazil have won how many World Cups?… Germany, Real Madrid, Barcelona all play football.
    “To come out with the conclusion that you have to kick the ball in the stands to win football games, then that’s wrong.
    “I believe at some stage you stick to your principles even if it doesn’t go as well as you want it. You don’t question things like that because you lose one game. That’s why people around the team should continue to believe in what we do.
    “The best way to win is to perform. We have to convince ourselves to perform.”

    Playing “Ugly” football is not desirable, but you have to be pragmatic. There’s nothing wrong with taking into account the opposition, and using sensible tactics to address their relative strengths and weaknesses in order to give your team the best chance of winning. That’s what management is all about, but Wenger doesn’t care.

    He wants to stand on his soap-box and preach, then lose repeatedly & complain, then claim some imaginary moral-high-ground that doesn’t exist anywhere outside his own head. Based on this I would brace yourselves for more heavy defeats this season.

    Wenger cites all these great teams while justifying his desire to play the “Arsenal way”, but fails to consider that his record of success is a million miles away from all the teams that he claims to emulate.

    1. He’s also underestimating how good those defenders were and how an entire team pulled their weight. He should show us an example of it working for a team which does not have allot of the best players on the planet. Liverpool would prob be one but that was a different time, different rules, and match fixing was rife.

      Wenger has lost his advantage. He was the first out over here using numbers / stats, eating healthy, signing and training athletes. Now they all do it and the teams who sign top players and good coaches, managers who get the best out of players and tactics, these now have the advantage over Wenger.

    1. We could have had Baptista too, scary thing is how some of them if not all, would have got a shot last season, and we’d prob be saying sure we need to try something different so why not.

  4. Ill expect to see Welbeck on the left in place of Alexis. If hes not match fit and isnt in the right frame of mind than he is a liability. Hopefully we will revert back to a back 4 for now and actually play players in their correct positions (its really sad we have to worry about that). What im more interested in seeing is if we will change the fiasco of a midfield we have. Xhaka needs to sit the bench until he find his form. Ramsey needs to realize he doesnt have the freedom he wants to leave xhaka and make runs into the box. The full backs as well are guilty of constantly getting caught out. You know who played really well next to xhaka… Ox. Which is the role he wanted to begin with. But weve been so terrible that at this point id like to see Jack given a go and paired with Elneny or coq, cant get much worse. id go with Elneny as coq is useless on the ball and is prone to messing up the simplest passes. 2 more years and we will finally see some change.. hopefully.

    1. “coq is useless on the ball and is prone to messing up the simplest passes”

      100% pass rate in last game.
      Check your facts – before needlessly slamming a player

  5. I was angry when we didn’t play Laca and Kolasinac against Liverpool. I have no problem if Wenger benches Sanchez to take some of the attention away from him. The guy started a late pre season and just had two games with Chili and his dream to be reunited with Pep shattered.

    Give him a rest or bring him on as a sub. Might also make him realize he is not an automatic starter.

    I will be angry if we don’t play Laca in the central striker role and Kolasinac as left back.

  6. PS: I will probably also be irritated if we once again play Monreal in the middle as a CD (whilst Mustafi, Mert, and Chambers are fit) and Berllerin as left back and Kolasinac on the left of a back 3 (it takes half his game away since he can’t go forward as a CD)

    1. I don’t even want him left side of the three, nor at left back. He began last season very poorly, it went on for quite a bit with himself being a liability. This season it’s on Wenger, but I wouldn’t be confident with him no matter where he plays right now. I never liked him as a CB, even if I can admit he put in some good performances in at LCB. The height will always be an issue for me and I don’t understand why it’s not for Wenger. Pep would do similar but that was at Barca, and we’re no Barca. This league a Mascherano would be easily found out at CB. And I already thought Mustafi and Koscielny were a bit on the short side, I hate us being weak defensively.

  7. Alexis putting on extra weight is yet another sign that things are not serious enough at Arsenal. Was it Klopp or Pep who dropped a player for doing similar right before a season started. Players usually take care of themselves over the break, these days you don’t see many of them piling on the pounds. The fact it’s Alexis is curious, the man lives to work out. I noticed the weight before the Liv game when I seen training ground pictures, and I said to myself jayzuz you’d think Alexis was fat looking at these, I didn’t believe the pictures. It would explain some of his tweeting though, he comes off very sombre at times and is a bit of a philosopher, maybes he’s eating because he’s depressed. Or it could have been a last resort tactic in getting us to sell him. I’d still play him however, we can’t afford to keep mucking about with games or it could get extremely embarrassing this season.

    1. “Alexis putting on extra weight is yet another sign that things are not serious enough at Arsenal.”

      His issue was his head. Turned. By Pep last year.

      The loss to Liverpool was going to happen, whether it was 0-2 or 0-6 was the question.

  8. Sick of reading articles on hear trying to incite hate, if anything he should be on the bench. He should have been on the bench against Liverpool as well.
    He’s clearly lacking form and his head is all over the place.
    The starting 11 should be players we know are going to be 100% focused, this is a huge game and we need everyone focused on one thing, ARSENAL!

  9. I read about a potential signing of our own loyal player , Sagna. ( as a free agent ) how true is this fellows?

  10. The problem is Wenger’s Freudian tight ass. The moment he signed Sanogo we knew his mind and his ass were intimately connected. The minute he bid 40,000,001 for the Suarez release clause we knew his arrogance was beyond that known in the Western World. The minute he could have bought Thomas Lemar for 60 million but then had to bid 90 million we realised he was the reincarnation of Coco the Clown.

    1. 1. Sonogo was an attempt. It failed. He left. Happens to every club.
      2. Suarez would never have been sold to Arsenal. Not by Liverpool, which sought Arsenal’s spot in the top four.
      3. Lemar would not be sold without a King’s ransom, not early in the season, not later in the season, when Mbappe was a target for so many clubs willing to pay over 100M.

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