Alexis Sanchez is still at Arsenal… so he might as well cheer up and try to make the best of it
The wantaway Chilean was met with a mixed reception of cheers and boos as a late substitute against Bournemouth
A GLORIOUS return then for Alexis Sanchez, who even lifted silverware before his first Emirates appearance of the season.
The Chilean received the Arsenal Supporters' Club Player of the Year award for last term.
He then handed his gong to a minion with a speed suggesting it could be up for grabs at a Santiago car-boot sale by next weekend.
Helpfully, international team-mate Claudio Bravo has told how Sanchez had gone “from happiness to bitterness in a few hours” after the collapse of his £60million deadline-day move to Manchester City.
But never mind all that, because Arsenal are back.
Back out of crisis for approximately the 300th time in Arsene Wenger’s reign, after beating a flaccid Bournemouth side.
No wonder Cherries manager Eddie Howe has been so widely tipped to take over from Wenger.
This away performance was all very Arsenalish.
Just four weeks into Wenger’s latest contract and the endless flip-flopping in and out of crisis is continuing at pace, just as it has since prehistoric times.
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Even Gunnersaurus, a big green dinosaur who represents a 65-million-year-old species, is beginning to think the Wenger saga is dragging on a bit.
It has been largely forgotten since Arsenal received a 4-0 hiding at Liverpool before the international break that Wenger has a seriously good squad at his disposal.
Just one look at the bench — David Ospina, Per Mertesacker, Olivier Giroud, Theo Walcott, Alex Iwobi, Sanchez, Francis Coquelin — suggests that while Wenger’s talk of the title might be outlandish, they really ought to be contesting a Champions League spot at least.
Wenger said this was a test for “the mental health” of his team and had Arsenal failed to win yesterday, the roof would have caved in.
One of those days when the Emirates becomes an angry hive of 60,000 people shouting at one another. Civil war is always festering away just beneath the surface.
And this week, for the first time in almost 20 years, Arsenal will watch the Champions League from their sofas and prepare for a Europa League clash with Cologne.
So Bournemouth were opponents Wenger would have hand-picked — they are a lower-rent version of his own team, unable to physically bully Arsenal and lacking sufficient quality to out-pass them.
In his dreams, all of Wenger’s opponents are as obliging as this.
And you cannot argue with the Frenchman’s ideals.
The way he imagines Arsenal playing is a thing of spectacular beauty — it’s only when the other lot turn up he ends up frustrated.
On this occasion, though, the result was never in serious doubt once Danny Welbeck had diverted in a Sead Kolasinac cross with his shoulder in the sixth minute.
Alexandre Lacazette bent home from range and Welbeck tucked in his second early in the second half.
When Sanchez arrived as a late substitute, he was met with a mixed reception of cheers and boos.
They are rarely all of one opinion about anything here.
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Should he and Mesut Ozil see fit to operate at anything near their optimum level throughout this season — presumably their final one at Arsenal — then the Gunners ought not meet the alarmist predictions of a slump into mid-table misery.
Wenger couldn’t fathom why any supporters might boo Sanchez.
“I love my players, it is true,” said Wenger, wistfully, when challenged about their title credentials.
This love, this excessive loyalty to players who do not always merit it, is probably his greatest crime.
Just as Gunners supremo Stan Kroenke’s loyalty to Wenger is the American’s own greatest flaw.
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It is not a problem Sanchez is ever likely to suffer from.
But he is still here, so he might as well cheer up and try to make the best of it.
