Alexis Sanchez: Why did the Arsenal superstar flop so badly at Man Utd after blockbuster January swap-deal?

Sanchez committed to a contract at United through to 2022 worth a reported £14 million per year after leaving Arsenal, which saw him become the Premier League's highest-earning player. According to The Telegraph, United also paid the Chilean a £20m ($25m) signing-on fee and another £10m went to his agent, bringing the overall cost of the deal to £93m ($116m).

Manchester City were also in the running for Sanchez, but ultimately refused to meet his wage demands. United thought they had beaten their rivals to a major coup, with then-manager Jose Mourinho describing Sanchez as "one of the best attacking players in the world" before claiming the 29-year-old "completes our very young and talented group of attacking players."

The Red Devils were so convinced that Sanchez would be a guaranteed hit at Old Trafford, that their media team even put together a cringe-inducing announcement video with the former Barcelona attacker playing 'Glory Glory Man United' on the piano. Suffice it to say, that clip aged like milk, and became a tool for rival fans to use against Sanchez after every poor performance - of which their were many.

Sanchez scored 80 goals and laid on another 44 in 166 appearances for Arsenal, having initially joined the club from Barca in 2014. Arsene Wenger used Sanchez as a left-winger to start with, but he would go on to prove himself in the No.10 role before eventually being converted into a fully-fledged centre-forward.

There was a notable drop-off in Sanchez's output in the final six months of his Arsenal career, but he hit 30 goals across all competitions in his last full season at the club, including the crucial opener in a shock 2-1 victory over Chelsea in the FA Cup final. At times, Sanchez looked completely unstoppable; a quick, powerful and elusive forward with ice in his veins - and that's the player United believed they were getting.

Sanchez started well enough on a cold night in Yeovil, creating two of United's goals in a comfortable 4-0 FA Cup fourth-round win, but came crashing back down to earth on his Premier League debut. Tottenham beat Mourinho's side 2-0 at their temporary Wembley home, and Sanchez failed to muster a single shot, while only touching the ball twice in the Spurs penalty area.

It was a sign of things to come. Sanchez scored his first goal in the iconic red shirt as United bounced back with a routine 2-0 home win over Huddersfield, but only after getting lucky with a penalty rebound. And eight days later, they lost again, this time at Newcastle, with Sanchez guilty of missing an open goal that would have given his team a vital 1-1 draw. To make matters worse, Sanchez lost possession 36 times in both matches, twice as many as any other United player in a single match up to that point in the season.

Sanchez continued to figure prominently, starting 13 of United's remaining 15 games across all competitions in the 2017-18 campaign, but only mustered two goals. There were still fleeting moments of magic, most notably when Sanchez laid on two superb assists in a thrilling 3-2 comeback win over Manchester City at the Etihad Stadium, and he produced a Man-of-the-Match turn as the Red Devils beat Spurs 2-1 in the FA Cup semi-finals.

But he wasn't the game-changer United wanted, the one who ran defenders ragged with his footwork and fired in shots from all angles in the red of Arsenal. Sanchez seemed afraid to express himself in Mourinho's more defensive set-up, unable to build up any kind of rhythm out wide or in a No.10 role behind Lukaku.

"I believe he has lost confidence," Wenger said when assessing Sanchez's struggles at Old Trafford on beIN Sports. "The strength of Alexis Sanchez is to show initiative, to dribble, to take people on. These players are the most vulnerable when they have no confidence anymore because their game is based on feeling free to take the initiative. He had a high level of physical energy and he has lost that as well."

United finished the season 19 points behind champions City, and missed out on silverware after losing the FA Cup final to Chelsea, after which Scholes singled out Sanchez for some stinging criticism. "His performances, well they have to improve," the United legend told BT Sport. "They can't get any worse to be honest with you. I think the next few games of next season are vital to him, he needs to get fans believing again and believing they are going to get close to City. They need a big player."

Sanchez failed to rise to Scholes' challenge. The Chile international's first full season at United would turn out to be a nightmare of epic proportions, as he only found the net twice in 27 appearances across all competitions.

The first real reality check for Sanchez came when he was left out of a trip to West Ham in September. Mourinho played down the significance of the decision in public, but FOX News reported that Mourinho had lambasted Sanchez for his poor form in a team meeting on the Monday before the game.

"I wasn't picked. That had never happened to me as a player. It bothered me and I said it couldn't be possible," Sanchez said when addressing the incident the following year "To go from being one of the best in the Premier League to not playing in five months. I came to my house and I was very sad. The next day I trained in a double shift, because I love what I do."

That work paid off in the short-term, as he came off the substitute's bench to score the winner in United's next Premier League game against Newcastle, but the damage was already done. Sanchez had lost Mourinho's trust, and he was no longer a first-choice player.

Mourinho's eventual sacking in mid-December didn't change things either, at which point Sanchez had been laid low with a hamstring injury. By the time he returned in the New Year, United were enjoying a mini-resurgence under Solskjaer, and Sanchez had fallen even further down the attacking pecking order.

Unsurprisingly, Sanchez didn't do enough to win his place back, not least because of his misplaced sense of entitlement.

"He [Solskjaer] hasn't spoken to me a great deal about what I have to do on the pitch, but I think I'm an experienced player and I think I know what I need to do and what I shouldn't do," Sanchez told reporters when discussing his reduced role. "I'm a player that, if I'm not in contact with the ball, I lose that spark, and I want to play in every game.

"You're in, you're out, and I'm used to playing. It's not an excuse because if I go on for 10, 20 minutes, I have to perform because that's what I'm here for, to make a difference. I would like to have brought more joy to the club. Yes, it worries me because I believe in my abilities as a player, I want to show it."

Despite Sanchez's whining, Solskjaer gave him plenty of chances to prove himself. He started three of United's four Premier League games in February 2019 alone, but barely had any impact. Lukaku, Marcus Rashford, Martial and Lingard were all playing far better than Sanchez, that's the simple truth.

A knee injury then kept Sanchez sidelined through March, and his recovery took longer than expected, with Solskjaer hinting he wasn't doing enough to change his situation as United faced the prospect of a second successive trophy-less season.

"As a club we cannot carry players," the United boss told The Telegraph. "Everyone has to take ownership, keep improving, show that hunger that you want to get better individually and as a team. I'm not just talking about Alexis. Everyone is under the same demands."

It quickly became clear that Sanchez did not form part of Solskjaer's future plans, and there was a sense of relief around Old Trafford when he finally completed his loan move to Inter. Sanchez left United having only found the net five times across 45 appearances in all competitions, which equates to one goal every 555 minutes.

"Sanchez has been an absolute disaster," Gary Neville declared on Sky Sports. "I have no idea what's happened to him. There must be two of them. The one that's turned up in Manchester I have no idea who that is."

The better version of Sanchez, or at least a more committed one, turned up at Inter, as he recorded 12 goal contributions in 22 Serie A appearances. In August 2020, United agreed to waive the final two-years of Sanchez's £560,000-per-week contract, and he joined Inter on a free transfer.

After cutting ties with United, Sanchez could have thanked the fans for their support, or even apologised for not living up to expectations. Instead, he celebrated his liberation by embarking on an extraordinary rant against the club, blaming everyone except himself.

“The first training I had I realised many things," Sanchez said in a lengthy Instagram video. "I came home and I told my representative: ‘Can’t the contract be terminated to return to Arsenal?’ They start laughing and I told them that something did not sit right with me."

Sanchez probably didn't realise that his agent was laughing at him, not with him. He'd just signed the most lucrative deal in Premier League history, but was prepared to tear it up on day one because, presumably, everything was not geared around him like it was at Arsenal.

Sanchez also claimed he had been made a scapegoat for United's failings as a collective, adding: "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. 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 on to the pitch, and since there needed to be someone to blame, they blamed me."

What an incredible lack of self-awareness. Sanchez may have joined a disjointed team, but he made them even worse, and did nothing to help generate a 'family' atmosphere. According to the Daily Mail, Sanchez trudged around Carrington with a 'miserable' look on his face and sat alone when eating meals in the canteen, with Mourinho saying of his experience working with him: "I felt him [to be] not a happy man."

Aside from that one night at the Emirates almost six years ago, Sanchez left no mark in United's folklore. His only legacy at Old Trafford is this: If you arrive at United with the attitude you're bigger than the club, then failure is guaranteed.