It’s highly debatable, of course, but Alexis Sanchez might just be the worst signing, of all-time, in Manchester United history. His wages were astronomical and totally offset the balance of pay scale on the roster.
He was often injured, and when fit the Chilean produced next to nothing. By the end of his tenure, United were simply at the point of paying him not to play for them. Why was this such a disaster of epic proportions? Turns out he wanted to leave the club on day one.
Sanchez posted a six minute video on his official Instagram account, and it included the following excerpts of his speech:
“Before, I had an agreement with Man City, but due to football issues, I accepted the opportunity to go to United. It felt tempting and it was something good for me. I liked this club a lot when I was a kid”
“Eventually, I signed but I didn’t ask for information on what was happening inside the club. Sometimes there are things that you don’t realise until you get there and I remember the first training session I had, I realised a lot of things.
“After the session I got home and I told my family and my agent: ‘Can you not rip up the contract to go back to Arsenal?’ They laughed, I told them there’s something that doesn’t sit right, it doesn’t seem good.
“But I already signed, I was already there. After the first few months I carried on having the same feeling, we weren’t united as a team in that moment.”
As you can see from the text above, Alexis referenced the 2017 summer transfer window deadline day move to Manchester City that was supposed to potentially happen, but never materialized.
That set the negative tone right there, before Sanchez moved from Arsenal to United in a January window swap deal which saw Henrikh Mkhitaryan moving the other way. In the end, it didn’t work out for either player, and both attacking mids/wingers saw similar resolution to their failed transfer stints.
Both Alexis Sanchez and Henrikh Mkhitaryan joined a Serie A side on loan (the former Inter Milan, the latter AS Roma) before eventually moving to those clubs on a permanent basis.
“El Niño Maravilla,” now aged 31, managed just three goals in 32 appearances with United. He wasn’t done opening up about his disaster experience with MUFC.
“I’m telling you my experience, the journalists at times would speak without knowing the facts and it hurt, they had no idea what was going on inside the club,” he continued.
“They said it was my fault, and this, and that, but sometimes a player depends on the environment, the family that is created around him, and I think that in that moment we weren’t really a family.”
“And that translated onto the pitch, and since there needed to be someone to blame, they blamed me.”
Well, here’s the hoping to the next chapter is a better, more productive, and happier one for all involved.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, the author of “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry,” regularly contributes to WGN TV, Sports Illustrated, Chicago Now and SB Nation.
You can follow Banks, a former writer for Chicago Tribune.com, on Twitter and his cat on Instagram.