Can Arsenal Break the Curse of Being Themselves and Satisfy Alexis Sanchez?

After two decades in his current position, Arsene Wenger needs little training in how to publicly defuse a situation. The typically composed Arsenal manager is such a diplomat that he could convincingly explain a 20-man dressing-room brawl as a team-bonding exercise. But just in case his skills in this discipline needed sharpening, Alexis Sanchez is ensuring his boss keeps up his practice. 

It's perhaps a reflection of the football-cum-period-drama prism through which we view the Premier League in 2017 that, even after another pulsating weekend in a thrilling season, our major focus is on two guys for having a spat and not playing, and on another for angrily hiding under a coat. 

If Chelsea manager Antonio Conte taking a stance with Diego Costa and West Ham United fans changing their chant to take their own against Dimitri Payet gave Saturday the feel of a matinee session in the West End, then Alexis' histrionic performance after being substituted in Arsenal's 4-0 win over Swansea City was the equivalent of getting one of those little ice-cream cups free of charge on top.

Watching the Chilean mourn his own substitution in the way you might expect from someone who'd been handed their P45 on Christmas Eve was theatre (television) gold. Forget "Aguerooo"; these are the moments broadcasters paid all that money for.

Shortly afterward, Wenger called upon those skills in political relations. "Looking at the game tonight, that is really minor, minor, minor," the Frenchman said of his star forward's strop. "All players are frustrated when they come off—some show it; some don't."

Wenger will know the speculation over the incident is about more than that alone. It was only 10 days earlier that he was going through the same routine after Alexis had shown that the gloves are now off, literally, when it comes to displaying frustration with those around him following a 3-3 draw with Bournemouth. 

"What is surprising [about that]?" Wenger said on that occasion, refuting the idea that his forward is unhappy and eyeing a way out. "We want to win the games, if you don't, you're not happy. That is normal."

It's a perilous task to attempt to draw hidden meaning from the actions of professional footballers. But with an uncomfortable contract standoff lingering in the background like a decent-sized planet, to not do so would be a failure on this writer's part and maybe even result in a P45 of his own. For Arsenal, Alexis is a test of ambition. 

To say the Chilean wants a pay rise is probably insufficient. The former Barcelona man earns a reported £130,000 per week, but the Evening Standard says both he and Mesut Ozil (£140,000 per week) are looking for a figure comparable with the league's best-paid player, Paul Pogba, at £290,000 per week.

It's no wonder Arsenal are taken aback: Try asking for a 123 per cent pay raise in your own job tomorrow, and your position will be on Monster.co.uk by the afternoon. 

But football isn't governed by the laws of the real world. Alexis can demand that sort of money because someone will give it to him, and with the game the way it is, he probably deserves it, too. 

If we're measuring worth by output, then the Arsenal forward has a claim for being the best player in the league. No one has more than his 14 goals this season, and no one can match his seven assists. Directly involved in 21 of Arsenal's 48 goals—not to mention the countless others he's had a hand in creating while operating as a dynamic centre-forward—he's unquestionably the best player the club has had since Thierry Henry. 

Given this is a club at which fans once chanted "Sign him up!" en masse for Theo Walcott, you'd think the vocal chords around the Emirates Stadium might be warming up again. 

But money is a divisive issue. Ozil's demands are such a big deal they even drew a response from Labour Party leader and Arsenal supporter Jeremy Corbyn. "Mesut, thanks for your game, you are a fantastic player," he told The Andrew Marr Show, buttering him up before the blow, "but can you just live with what you've got at the moment?"

It's fair to say most of you would live just fine with more than £500,000 coming in each month.

"Compared to 99.9 per cent of Spain and the rest of the world, I earn an obscene amount," the now-most likeable guy in football, Manchester United midfielder Juan Mata, told Salvados (h/t AS) last year. 

He's right, but if the money's there, the question becomes this: Would you rather Arsenal majority shareholder Stan Kroenke have it to buy another ranch? Or is it better in Alexis' hands to buy a millennium's worth of premium dog food?

Whatever Alexis is feeding himself, it's also premium. Almost as wide as he is high through muscle alone (and perhaps a bit of stone), no one else in the Premier League quite possesses his combination of speed, strength, endurance, tenacity and outright aggression—qualities he blends with the smallest turning circle in London, beating out the black cab, and a right foot that could chop down trees.

Regular ArsenalFanTV contributor Claude recently said watching Alexis was "better than having sex." You can't doubt the thrills that the Gunners No. 7 delivers, but perhaps the more accurate conclusion here is that Claude's not doing it right. 

Still, if Arsenal don't want to pay for these attributes, plenty of others will. Manchester City would gleefully go shopping in Islington once more and get a blast of nostalgia in the process. Manchester United and Chelsea would happily hand it over if Alexis went all Rod Tidwell on them. 

"It doesn't really depend on me so much as it does the club, if they want to show confidence in me," the forward told Sky Sports (h/t the Mirror) about contract negotiations late last year. He may as well have hired a plane to write it in the sky above Kroenke's house. 

But you sense all this might be about more than money. Alexis holding out for top dollar with his contract running down is essentially asking Arsenal, the Premier League's sustainability men, how much they want to win. 

As peer pressure teaches most, it's rarely advisable to do something just because someone else is doing it. But playing the role of the sensible kid does little for you in England's top division. 

According to The Independent's Miguel Delaney, Manchester United and Antoine Griezmann have already agreed the principles of a deal for next summer, to the point that a shirt number has already been discussed.

Even if that sounds a bit like mentioning the chocolates you'd like for Valentine's Day 10 months out while still sifting through the entrees on a first date, it's a reminder that Arsenal's peers will soon go big again in the transfer market. Alexis and Ozil will want to play with the best; the Gunners will have to keep signing them to satisfy those they have—Gabriel Paulista at right-back doesn't cut it. 

Beyond the accountants, Wenger has his own role to play here. Alexis is into his third season under the Frenchman and has already grown far too familiar with the Arsenal tale. 

The Chilean has grumbled and shaken his head as Arsenal have done the almost-heroic-comeback thing after disaster; as they've played like gods for not long enough after playing like groundhogs; as they've exhibited their remarkable self-correcting mechanism, imploding when given a chance to kick on but always recovering when on the verge of imploding; as Olivier Giroud did his best to encapsulate an entire club's perceived mentality with a single celebration. 

This remains the curse of being Arsenal, and it's up to Wenger to perform the exorcism to convince the game's leading players the club is worth their time—at a delicate time. 

Even if the #WengerOut brigade has grown in recent years, and though television presenter and Arsenal fan Piers Morgan is said to be planning a coup, the ongoing presence of Arsenal's manager—a man with an uncertain future of his own—looks vital in the club's hopes of retaining the men who ensure they're competitive at the top.

"The fans want that I stay, and now it is just down to the club," Ozil told Kicker (h/t the Daily Mail). "They know that I am here most of all because of Arsene Wenger. He is the one who signed me, and he is the one whose trust I have. The club also knows that I want to be clear what the manager is going to do."

That's not so much putting the ball in the other's court as it is making an ultimatum. Wading through the early and inevitably difficult post-Wenger years in which Arsenal will be searching for an identity clearly holds no interest for the German. Robin van Persie can reassure him that process is no fun. 

Ozil will be a challenge to keep a hold of, but he'll be priority No. 2; Alexis is No. 1. But Arsenal have a fight on their hands to be the same to him.