Why Arsenal mustn't allow Alexis Sanchez to leave

From the moment Alexis Sanchez was dropped to the bench at the Allianz Arena, it seemed inevitable that come to the end of the season he would be on his way out of Arsenal. Arguably the biggest game of the Gunners’ season and the Chilean was omitted. It was difficult to envisage a way back for him.

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Think about how Carlos Tevez’s benching at the same stadium five years before spelled the end for him at Manchester City. The same was expected to materialise with Sanchez. Of course, it might still, with the Chilean’s contract at the Emirates Stadium set to expire at the end of the season. Discussions have reportedly stalled, with Premier League and European rivals thought to be circling.

Arsenal have been here before with Robin Van Persie, Samir Nasri, Emmanuel Adebayor and Aleksandr Hleb among others. It’s been a while since they allowed one of their star players to run down their contracts, but here they are again. But the sale of Sanchez would be even more impactful than anything that has come before. He would be Arsenal’s greatest loss of the Arsene Wenger era.

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The Chilean is undoubtedly Arsenal’s best player. Mesut Ozil might be more refined, the kind of player best enjoyed with a brandy in hand, but Sanchez is a force of nature in the way his German teammate isn’t. When the going gets tough, Sanchez gets going, and that quality is invaluable for a club now considered something of an underdog.

Sanchez is the player Arsenal should be building a team around, whether Wenger leaves the club this summer or not. In the past, the Gunners have been accused of being faceless. While they have possessed technical quality, a lack of personality has counted against them. Sanchez has the kind of personality they need, a winning personality.

That’s why he deserves some slack for his petulant reaction earlier in the season. The South American was reported to be involved in a training ground flair-up with Wenger as Arsenal’s season once again ebbed away, resulting in his dropping for the Champions League last 16 tie with Bayern Munich. But that was surely a byproduct of his frustration. His frustration at the culture of losing that exists at the Emirates.

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He’s perhaps the only natural-born winner Arsenal have got right now. He’s won league titles and cups at Barcelona, International tournaments with Chile as well. There’s something burning deep inside Sanchez that says second best isn’t good enough, and Arsenal need as many such characters as possible. They could do with one of those characters in the dugout.

Having scored 23 goals in 35 starting Premier League appearances this season, Sanchez’s productivity speaks for itself – he is among the very best at what he does – but his significance goes beyond his statistics. You can’t illustrate on a heat map just how important the Chilean is to Arsenal, or how disastrous it would be for them were they to let him go.

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Only the intangibles can communicate that. It’s about how Sanchez presses high and hard even when Arsenal are losing. It’s even about the times he throws his arms in the air, complaining at the situation his club finds itself in. Arsenal need more players who care, and Sanchez seems to care more than anyone else, even more than Wenger.

And so Arsenal must hand the forward a new contract as soon as they can. Pay Sanchez what he wants, because something else will. If it’s a choice between Wenger and Sanchez, then the club must consider its plan for the future. While Wenger has built Arsenal in its current form, Sanchez represents where they must go from here. They should consider him the catalyst for a new era.