Arsenal suffered their 2nd Premier League loss at the hands of Everton on Tuesday night, subsequently losing the opportunity to temporarily go top of the league.
It’s the first time the Gunners have lost in the EPL since their opening day loss to Liverpool, but early events at the Goodison Park hinted at a possible 11th league win, not a defeat, as Sanchez had put Arsenal in the lead with barely half of the 1st period played.
However, Everton came from behind to land a heavy blow on the Gunners’ top-of-the-table ambitions, and one player clearly going to get most frustrated is Alexis Sanchez.
For all his hard work and 12th league goal of the season, returning to the Emirates without a single point would have been a bitter pill for him to swallow.
On the night when Arsenal’s midfield couldn’t withstand the pace of the game, and the attackers failed to provide necessary support for Sanchez, it wouldn’t be an error to say the brilliance of the Chilean goes missing without help from his teammates.
Walcott and Chamberlain were missing in action, Ozil squandered 2 clear-cut chances, while none of Giroud, Iwobi and Perez could provide any sort of inspiration off the bench.
Alexis Sanchez made 3 key passes, averaged 61% pass accuracy and managed 2 shots – with 1 finding the target and the back of the net. Of all Arsenal’s players, it was only the South American forward who gave his all from start to finish, but as always learnt, an individual can’t win games when everyone else around him makes no efforts to.
His records prove that he might have started becoming too good for Arsenal, as he has often been the one to solely fire them to victory, with the supporting casts proving to be a bunch of overrated and hyped average players.
In his professional career, the 27-year-old has scored against 20 of the 23 Premier League sides he has faced – an achievement nobody in the current Arsenal squad comes close to.
Alexis Sanchez: Has now scored against 20 of the 23 Premier League sides he has faced in his career #EFCvAFC
— WhoScored.com (@WhoScored) December 13, 2016
Since arriving the Emirates in 2014, Sanchez has bagged 41 goals in 81 Premier League games and has remained unarguably their best player ever since.
Currently seeing out the penultimate year of his contract, there has been talks of a contract extension meeting the brick wall as the club isn’t ready to meet his demands, but one can’t imagine an Arsenal without Sanchez.
Apart from his contributions to their impressive run domestically, he has also been responsible for their solid European form, and despite getting drawn against Bayern Munich in the first knockout stages, Sanchez remains a reason there is a big belief in Arsenal’s chances of advancing to their first quarterfinal since 2010.
He has been consistently excellent and continues to be heralded as one of the best players in the Premier League as a whole. No other Arsenal player gets such credits, the only one who comes close always go missing in almost every other big game.
Wenger recently claimed Sanchez isn’t bigger than Arsenal in response to the Chilean demanding a big pay rise. The Frenchman insists “Arsenal is a big club. It is not one or two players who will make the difference to the club.” While the club remains bigger than the player, his recent performances prove he might have become just too good for them already.