Six months have passed since Alexis Sanchez arrived at Arsenal for £35million and one nagging question remains: what do you think they were smoking over there at the Nou Camp?
People are entitled to the occasional mistake — Wojciech Szczesny lost his place for taking a crafty puff on a cigarette, for example — but Barcelona’s is on another level.
With every passing week, with every goal and every assist in the colours of Arsenal, the decision to sell the Chilean last summer becomes more absurd.
Sanchez made the first and scored two himself here, drifting between brilliant and sublime in this rhythmic destruction of Stoke City.
Arsenal were interrupted, at times, by Stoke’s agricultural approach and their willingness to look for a fight at every opportunity. What the visitors got in return was a football lesson.
Sanchez operated at a different pace to those around him. In this kind of form he can play wherever he wants. He has now scored 12 goals and engineered another seven in the Barclays Premier League since he said his goodbyes to Lionel Messi and Neymar.
Arsenal, gathering momentum now, used the cushion of a three-goal lead to bring Theo Walcott and Mesut Ozil from the substitutes’ bench in the second half. They are still a little way off, but when Arsenal play on the front foot like this, a team full of conviction and purpose, Arsene Wenger can afford to wait a bit longer for them.
Sanchez was mesmerising, waiting patiently for Laurent Koscielny to sprint back into the penalty area when the Arsenal defender had served him with the chance to set up the opener.
Sanchez paused, checking his movement until he could find Koscielny and then looked on with a good deal of satisfaction as the Frenchman directed his header beyond Asmir Begovic.
He scored a beauty in the 33rd minute, collecting Tomas Rosicky’s pass on the edge of the area and gliding past the outstretched legs in Stoke’s defence. The finish was top-quality, deceiving Begovic and the rest of the Stoke defence by giving it the eyes before opting to drill his effort inside the keeper’s near post. He deserved full marks for improvisation.
culled from dailymail
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