Why Alexis Sanchez Is the Arsenal Player Liverpool Would Have Loved to Sign
It’s almost a Sliding Doors moment.
On the one side of the divide, there is the Liverpool that signed Alexis Sanchez from Barcelona last summer, replacing the optimism lost by the sale of Luis Suarez in one fell swoop and more than satisfactorily tooling up ready to “go again” for 2014/15—first, not second, the target this time.
And on the other, there is what actually happened.
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Sanchez went to Arsenal, had a stellar Premier League season and won the FA Cup, while a remodelled Liverpool full of new faces fell drastically short on their return to the Champions League, failed to reach it again and then lost both their 21st-century icon and brightest rising star in Raheem Sterling this summer. If you’re a Liverpool fan, then you probably preferred the first scenario.
Of course, things aren’t that black and white, but it isn’t too much of a stretch to claim that if the Reds snared the Chilean superstar instead of the Gunners last year, things would have been an awful lot different for them right now.
The success of Liverpool’s 2013/14 campaign was all about their insatiable desire to create as much havoc as possible, and there is little doubt that—of the players apparently within their transfer grasp—Sanchez was the best one available who could recreate Suarez’s role in proceedings.
Having just finished above Chelsea, Arsenal and Manchester United in the league, Liverpool surely sensed the moment as a chance to safeguard their long-term future, but instead, they found themselves back at square one.
The failure to sign Sanchez was compounded by the unfortunate injuries to Daniel Sturridge and the realisation that the type of forwards Brendan Rodgers had brought into the club—namely Mario Balotelli and Rickie Lambert—were clearly not suited to the previous season’s template.
Suddenly, instead of having a team full of runners who were willing to get in behind the opposition defence, the Reds were playing the ball into a static target man—someone whose lack of mobility was making everything break down behind them.
Of course, Rodgers couldn’t have predicted Sturridge’s injuries, but given his history, the Liverpool boss could have safeguarded against them. Sanchez proved in 2014/15 that—much like Suarez—he is built for the rigours of an English league season.
He seemed to get better as his first Gunners campaign went on—drifting in from the left to provide dynamic attacking support as he played off Olivier Giroud or dovetailed spectacularly with Mesut Ozil.
He’s not been the player to take the Gunners to the mythical “next level” because they still aren’t there yet. Back-to-back FA Cups haven’t brought them any closer to winning the Premier League or becoming a force in the Champions League.
But at a time when Arsene Wenger was yet again under pressure, Sanchez offered that longed-for sprinkling of stardust—he was a player the supporters would pin their hopes on and the man they’d pay their money just to watch.
Do Liverpool have one of those?
Philippe Coutinho is surely the closest thing, but until recently, he’s always been a player who sparks off those around him rather than dragging them to a higher level. The little Brazilian was electric when he played with Suarez, and there’s every reason to believe he’d have been the same with Sanchez over time.
All that said, Liverpool can’t afford to wonder what might have been any longer.
They face up to Sanchez and Arsenal on Monday night three points ahead of the Gunners in the league following the workmanlike victories over Stoke City and Bournemouth that saw them concede just three shots on target in 180 minutes.
That’s a far cry from the three goals they shipped in eight minutes at the Emirates Stadium back in April, when shambolic defending allowed the man who got away from them and his team-mates to steamroll them in a 4-1 victory.
Better defensive organisation will be needed if they are to have any hope of avoiding such embarrassment this time around, with a good result perhaps indicating that the club have moved on from missing out on Sanchez.
He remains a “what might have been,” but a solid start means the current Liverpool should only be focusing on what is.
Win at the Emirates, and a sliding door could be closed on the Sanchez disappointment forever.
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