Arsenal captain Mikel Arteta has hailed Alexis Sanchez as one of the best and praised the robust attacker for his commitment and work rate.
The Chilean has been voted the club’s player of the month for October after some impressive performances. The former Barcelona man also bagged the September month award highlighting the consistency of his performances.
Sanchez not only deserves the award for the goals but also for the sheer will and fight he puts in his game. He hardly stops running, forces the opposition into mistakes and punishes them ruthlessly. This was evident in the Sunderland game where Arsenal’s goals were scored as a direct result of Sanchez’s intense pressing.
Arteta says the Chilean’s game is the template for others and believes Arsenal should take advantage of the industry of the forward.
Both goals [at Sunderland] came as a result of our hard work. You can force mistakes when you chase people and put them in trouble. You do that again, again and again, and the opposition will make mistakes.
That’s what we need and now we have people up front with the knife in their teeth who want to go for it, so we have to make the most of it. The more we do it, the more we will improve.
Alexis closed Sunderland down really well. His desire and his commitment, in addition to the way he wants to train and improve himself, is spot on.
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Alexis is one of the best. He’s very committed. Even in recovery sessions he wants to go outside and train to keep improving. It’s a different culture and language for him so he doesn’t necessarily understand what we are saying at some times but he wants to play football and I think he feels comfortable as well.
As Mikel says Arsenal should really make more out of Sanchez’s hard work and graft by supporting him in pressing and hunting opponents down. The Chilean sometimes cuts an isolated figure as the other players don’t really share his enthusiasm for the hard pressing game. Let’s hope the other players learn to play the Alexis way instead of the Arsenal way that is clearly not working at the moment.
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