Alexis Sánchez is known in his home country, Chile, as “El Niño Maravilla” which means the wonder child. But he is now 31-year-old which means that he is no longer a child. Unfortunately, it is gradually becoming obvious that he has grown to become a man and has lost what made him a wonder child.
Sánchez was almost worshipped at Arsenal where he helped the club to win FA Community Shield, as well as the FA Cup on two occasions. He spent about four years at the club and decided to abandon it because he didn’t feel like the club was ambitious enough. The Chile international joined Manchester United in 2018 through a swap deal which saw Henrikh Mkhitaryan leaves United for Arsenal while he left Arsenal for United.
Unlike his days at Arsenal where he was the club’s main man, Sánchez found it impossible to establish himself at Manchester United. Hence, the Red Devils decided to send him to Italian Serie A side Inter Milan on loan in 2019.
Unfortunately for him again, he has not been able to establish himself in Italy as he always plays from the bench. Since 2019, the forward has managed to score only one goal in about 11 appearances. He could not help Inter Milan last night when the club was kicked out of the Coppa Italia by Napoli. He came in as a second-half substitute but there was nothing he could do to salvage the situation.
Alexis Sánchez not enough for £400,0000
Besides his unproductive time in Inter Millan, he earns a whopping £400,000-per-week, making him an unnecessary financial burden the San Siro based team can not wait to let go.
Unfortunately for him again, Manchester United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer doesn’t think the forward has any part to play in his first eleven. The coach said Sánchez could return and he would be a squad player which means that there won’t be first-team football for him.
While giving details about his plans for Sánchez, he painted a scenario where a beautiful sofa would not have a place in a room because of the kind of setting the owner of the sofa decided on.
“Of course there’s a place for good players and good people in this environment,” Solskjaer told The Star.
“Let’s see where we get to after the season because we do feel this squad is exciting. We do feel we’re on the way to something.
“It’s up to all the players when they’re here to do well, because there’s always talk of people coming in and out, and it’s about gelling this group together.
“Sometimes when you decorate your living room it might be a nice chair or a nice sofa, but it maybe doesn’t go with the rest of it.
“For us to think about major honours, our focus is about finishing the league this season.”
Alexis Sánchez will turn 32-year-old later this year and he still has two years on his contract with United. Though Solskjaer has concluded that the former Arsenal star is no longer needed at United, he is left with no choice than to find a place for him because Manchester United chief executive Ed Woodward has refused to pay off the player.
To pay off the forward, it will cost United about £24 million which is a huge sum of money that might be hard to part with at this critical period of time.
So, the only option left for Solskjaer is to find a club that will be willing to accept Sánchez on loan. Doing that will also be difficult because it will be hard to see a club that will sacrifice £400,000 every week for a player that is not reliable.
