Alexis Sanchez has been at Inter Milan for the entire 2019/20 season on loan and despite having a long injury lay off, he has come back into the team and shown enough to suggest that the Inter manager, Antonio Conte wants to keep him as part of his playing staff, making his loan spell permanent. It might have looked a costly bit of business for United after signing the player on a massive wage structure in January 2018 exchanging the player with Henrikh Mkhitaryan, who headed to Arsenal.
Sanchez made 45 appearances for United during the remainder of the 2017/18 and the 2018/19 season, scoring five goals and nine assists, playing 2,781 minutes of football. For such a world-class player at the time of his arrival, which was debatable at the time, more should have been expected. For this reason, Sanchez never made it at the club and failed under two managers; Jose Mourinho and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. The Chilean international did not do enough for the wage he was receiving.
In my personal view, I don’t think he is doing enough at Inter either but that will be a problem for them to deal with. It would seem that the piano-playing winger has played his last match for United which is a good thing for United as they look to be fully entering a new era of the club guided by Solskjaer, who seems to have more about him that any other manager post-Sir Alex Ferguson. Some will agree with that, others will disagree but the proof is in the pudding, or so they say.
At Inter this season, the Chilean, 31, made a total of 29 appearances, scoring four goals and nine assists as the Italian club finished as runners-up to Juventus, a point in it. Conte might be happy with that sort of input from some of his players but for United, especially when they could be paying the player £505,000 a week, which is the player’s full wage including bonuses, he would need to be the best player in the team. Sanchez’s arrival caused some problems at United with wages.
That was clear to see from the start and it was something that caused a rift at the club and to be perfectly honest, they have done well to get out of this not being massively out of pocket. Sanchez could have just sat there at the club for two more years earning massive amounts of money doing absolutely nothing. To sidestep that shows some ability to get business done, which is a good sign for the club. I won’t miss Sanchez to be perfectly honest but I will wish him the best for the future.
Whilst United will not get a transfer fee for the player, as reported by The Mirror, his wages will be offloaded, as soon as the move has been confirmed, which will be a big relief and a starting point to rebuild the club in a much better way. The fact that the club seem to be moving forwards in the pursuit of Jadon Sancho is a good thing and his arrival, effectively replacing Sanchez would be a massive step forwards for the club. United will have a lot to do this summer to assemble a side ready to take on the might of Liverpool and Manchester City, however, Rome was not built in a day.
Written by John Walker
