5 things that have gone wrong with Arsenal's season

#2 They haven’t sorted out the Alexis Sanchez situation

Alexis Sanchez is likely to leave at a cut-price this month

In the summer, despite signing Alexandre Lacazette, the biggest reason Arsenal were in the news was due to the situation surrounding their biggest star, Alexis Sanchez. The Chile international has been rumoured to be looking for the exit at the Emirates for some time, and in the summer the word was that he was likely on his way to rejoin Pep Guardiola at Manchester City – despite City not really needing the player. The deal couldn’t get done though, and so Alexis has remained at the Emirates and for the most part, he’s performed decently.

The big problem, however, is that his contract with Arsenal expires in June. That means that he could walk away for nothing come the summer, so of course, it makes total sense that they’d look to sell him in this month’s transfer window. And naturally, Manchester City again seem the likely suitors. Which bodes the question, why didn’t Arsenal just sell him in the summer? And if they ever thought there was the chance of the Chilean signing a new contract, why haven’t they managed to sort it out yet?

The likely answer is that he was never going to stick around. Which means for the want of 8 goals and 3 assists in all competitions, they’ve probably lost quite a substantial amount of money for the player. City supposedly think they can sign Sanchez for £25m, whereas in the summer that figure would’ve been far higher.

It’s a classic Arsenal mistake that could easily have been avoided, as if they’d sold Sanchez for bigger money in the summer, they could well have bought a replacement – perhaps Thomas Lemar – in time for the beginning of the season, rather than attempting to scramble for one halfway through with the Champions League almost out of reach.