Alexis answers critics in emphatic fashion

Alexis Sanchez scored his first goal in 434 minutes of football! He along with Olivier Giroud guided Arsenal to a 2-1 victory against Premier League struggler Queens Park Rangers on Wednesday.

Football fans are a fickle minded bunch at times and Alexis Sanchez, of all people, has been receiving negative attention due to his ‘goal drought’.

Despite scoring 18 goals in all competitions, a run of seven games without a goal suddenly brought about many different theories.

Can Mesut Özil and Sanchez play together? Has Alexis run himself into the ground?

The fact of the matter is that the Chilean suffered a hamstring injury against Brighton in January and hasn’t quite been the same ever since. Professional footballers often refer to these hamstring problems as one with a psychological impact as much as a physical one. The pace you play at tends to dwindle without the full confidence in your muscles to withstand the physical intensity.

Alexis Sanchez is a player who consistently pushes himself to the edge and was obviously affected by the muscular scare. But with the individual quality he possess the ‘goal-drought’ wouldn’t last long. Arsene Wenger did say that the Chilean had in his mind that a goal was due from him.

It is therefore testament to Alexis’s quality that the goal which lifts the pressure from him wasn’t a simple tap-in, but a wonderful individual goal that only he can produce.

Edited by Shivang Aggarwal