I vividly remember when one of those stat boys published an article stating that Alexis Sanchez had fired 33 shots and didn’t have any goal to show for it. Alexis had played 435 minutes of Premier League football without scoring a goal and it’s not as if he wasn’t giving his best. He had an effort blocked off the line against Crystal Palace, he hit the post three times against Liverpool and Stoke, then there were the superb saves from the opposition goalkeepers to continue his drought in front of goal.
With Alexis, it was simply a case of when he was going to start scoring, not if he was going to start scoring and when he started his streak, it was gonna take some stuffing to stop the Chilean maverick. His account opener was rather routine stuff, reacting quickly to place the ball in an unguarded Leicester City net thanks to some good work from Hector Bellerin. His second of the night was a brilliant header from another Mesut Ozil masterpiece. As for the third, oh my word!
Alexis wasn’t stopping there. He fashioned a chance for Theo Walcott against Olympiakos and when Walcott lofted that ball into the box, I saw Alexis leap like a kangaroo to bury the ball into the net with his head. Shortly after that, Louis van Gaal and his Philosophy FC came to town and Alexis sent them to the cleaners, with a first goal that made big fools outta the Manchester United defense and a second goal that two David de Geas wouldn’t have saved.
Then something scary really happened. Alexis hit the deck and signaled to the bench that his game was over for what seemed to be a groin injury. When the journos asked the gaffer if he was going to represent Chile in the international break, Arsene Wenger reluctantly accepted the fact that Alexis loves him some Chile and he was hopeful that he wouldn’t aggravate the groin injury. However, this beast came back home and combined with Eduardo Vargas to tear Brazil and Peru to shreds with both players scoring three goals each as Jorge Sampaoli’s side put two past Brazil and four past Peru.
Alexis will be on his way back to North London with his cross hairs on a Watford side that has been a strong defensive unit this season with their goalie, Heurelho Gomes, in top form too. In general, it was a great international break for the Gunners with a host of the players getting in on the scoring act, and I was happy for the likes of Olivier Giroud, Aaron Ramsey, Santi Cazorla, Joel Campbell and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain that scored for their respective nations, even though goals have been hard to come by for the folks here at Arsenal.
I’m really happy that Alexis is back to his best and all that ‘second season syndrome’ talk has gone with the wind. Let’s hope he can continue his hot mean streak in the coming weeks.
Sayonara.
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