Alexis Sanchez inspired by former Barcelona team-mate Lionel Messi as he bids to become Arsenal's striking star

Messi and Sanchez were Barcelona team-mates for three years
AFP/Getty Images
James Benge23 November 2016

Alexis Sanchez has revealed that he is being inspired by former team-mate Lionel Messi as he looks to reinvent himself as Arsenal’s first-choice striker.

Since the start of the season Sanchez, who has predominantly played as a winger since his arrival from Barcelona in 2014, has been deployed at the tip of Arsenal’s attack, from where he has provided eight goals in 16 games.

Though nominally Arsenal’s centre forward Sanchez does not function as the same sort of orthodox striker that Olivier Giroud had for the Gunners, often dropping deep to provide space for Mesut Ozil, Theo Walcott and others to burst in to.

Messi often did the same for Sanchez at Barcelona and the Chilean hopes to perform a similar role for Arsene Wenger.

“I like the way that Lionel Messi plays,” Sanchez told Arsenal Player. “He likes to drop deep and let other players run on ahead of him, like Jordi Alba, Dani Alves and myself, when I used to play on the right there then look to find him in the middle again.

“Not quite a false nine. I like getting involved in the play more rather than chasing the ball. I like seeing lots of the ball because I have the chance to drop deep and that means I can link up with my team-mates more.”

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in