Alexis Sanchez: My Thoughts

Bloody F****** Brilliant. Sorry to disappoint the haters. In my opinion, a player who isn’t from La Masia and doesn’t play for a team that has a player called Lionel Messi would consider a season good when he’s won 3 trophies, scored 15 goals (5 assists) inspite of injuries.

Allow me to put this into some form of perspective. Barcelona play a game that requires a level of fitness that is simply put , not normal. Too many of the club’s fans are spoilt rotten and choose to assume that our style of player is the "norm".

Think again, if any coach not named "Pep" asked me to run for 90 minutes(more so when we don’ t have the ball), chances are I’d say "when Eminem sings a ballad", I’ll run. Make no mistake, that level of fitness requires one thing more than anything, a great preseason and a state of mental-readiness.

Before the season, 99% of this community expected Alexis to be a great substitute for the likes of David Villa and Pedro (me included). Remember the good ol’ days when Barca won everything? Well if you do, then it is high time you force yourself forget. Time to get back to the "norm" and realise that in Alexis, Barca have a player capable of dribbling (only Iniesta and Messi are better).

With a player that young. I believe fans have to rate him on what his potential is more than how he has performed in his first season. Alexis did not have the advantage of being from the youth system (like Cesc), he has not played one touch football. He does, however, understand the concept of pressing like your life depends on it (thanks to Bielsa) and at times was even at risk of being blamed for working too hard and then getting injured. Anyhow….