Alexis Sanchez has become an extremely important part of this Arsenal team and Arsenal fans will have been horrified by the news that Chile decided to participate in the China Cup in January.
Too often international breaks have caused disruption and injuries to Arsenal players and thus having a sometimes devastating effect on the teams title hopes.
Alexis being Alexis wants to play every single game, but the news that Chile have not included him in their squad for the tournament will please and relieve the fans.
The Gunners have been scoring goals for fun in recent weeks and much of that is down to the fact that Alexis has been spearheading the attack. The ever-active Chilean is without a doubt Arsenal’s best striker since Robin van Persie and not only does he play his best football through the middle, but his style of play brings out the best of the players around him.
You only have to look at Theo Walcott’s comments from earlier in the week about how Alexis’ ethic rubs off on his teammates to see that: “When you see Mesut and Alexis, you think, ‘I want to be better than you’,” he said. “You see how hard they work and you think that you want to do the same. You can see that in the whole team, everyone wants to do more.
So Arsenal fans will hope that that is that in terms of international duty affecting Alexis’ consistency. They now need to cross their fingers and hope that he can keep up his current form and stay injury free, because if he can then Arsenal have every chance of lifting major honours at the end of the season.
There will also be hope that he signs a contract extension very soon! He and Mesut Ozil continue to be locked in contract negotiations with the club.