Player Focus: Alexis Quickly Taking Lead Role at Arsenal

Over the last few days, following some big performances, there’s been some big claims made about Alexis Sánchez. Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain compared the Chilean to Luis Suarez. Mathieu Flamini said he was like Thierry Henry and Robin van Persie.

While such calls may be premature, and Sanchez still has some way to go until he reaches such levels, it’s equally difficult to deny that this is the first time Arsenal have had a forward even close to that calibre since Van Persie’s departure.

Sanchez has been supreme, and finally restored a proper fear factor to the side’s attack again. That pace is just so striking, with every run illuminating games like a thunderclap. The comparison, however, should not be between Sanchez and other elite forwards. It should be between Arsenal with him and Arsenal without him. If defenders don’t know where he’ll pop up, it’s rather galling to think where Arsène Wenger’s side might be in the table if the Chilean wasn’t in the team.

His goals have lifted them to fifth, and often prevented a trying start to the season sinking into further deflation. Sanchez’s sharpness has been in stark contrast to the rest of the team. You only have to look at his scoring stats. The 25-year-old has the seventh best shots-to-goals ratio in the Premier League at 4.2 (of players to have scored at least 4 goals), and that has given him his best personal minutes-per-goal ratio of his career.

The remarkable aspect is that Sánchez has made this leap forward by playing further back. He seems to be becoming more complete, or is at least being allowed show his full game. Now deployed in a more withdrawn role than at Barca, he has seen more than his finishing improve. There’s also his general play - and his work rate.

It is something Oxlade-Chamberlain has picked up on. “He gives so much for the team and just in an attacking sense. I didn’t realise he works so hard off the ball, not just creating space for others but helping out defensively. He is a top player and has already made a big difference.” There’s certainly a big difference in his stats.

The Chilean now wins more aerial battles (0.8), offers far more tackles per game (0.8), fouls more (1.4), dribbles more (2.6) and is just more involved in play (46.9 passes per game).

Then there’s the net effect of all this: the elevation in overall quality. If there were very fair questions as to whether Wenger could have spent such money elsewhere in the team, there can be little doubt that Sànchez at least significantly improves the standard of that forward line.

It is not just more pace. It is more penetration, more perception, more premium class. Consider these figures. Sanchez is 12th in the Premier League for key passes, at 2.3. He is sixth in the league for dribbles, at 2.6. With both of those attributes, there is only one Arsenal player ahead of him: Mesut Özil. That is pointed.

Given that the German is going to be absent for such a long spell, it returns us to that key question: where would Arsenal be right now without Sanchez? He clearly offers more than those key goals. He is one of the main sources of overall creativity, opening teams with his runs and causing them problems with his passes.

He is already more than a forward, and may well become the complete attacker that all of Suarez, Henry and Van Persie represented at their peak. That in itself would represent more than even the most optimistic at Arsenal might have imagined in the summer.

There are two possible reasons for this. The first is simply natural progression. At 25, Sanchez is approaching his peak. The second is the system. The Chilean finally finds himself in a position that allows him to breathe, rather than the constraint he often faced at Barca. It does not feel a coincidence that his stats are his best since that big breakout campaign with Udinese in 2010/11.

Whatever is said about a successor to the likes of Henry and Van Persie, we may at last be seeing a return to the real Sanchez. Arsenal are going to need it to reach what they consider their real level.

Do you think Alexis Sánchez has what it takes to emulate these former Arsenal greats? Let us know in the comments below