Say it after me… “entooosiasm”.

Whenever someone uses the word “enthusiasm“, I am immediately reminded of Robert De Niro’s performance as Al Capone in The Untouchables and a scene involving a baseball bat.

Happily, this article isn’t going to be as blood soaked as that famous scene, but it is going to look at the reasons for Arsène Wenger’s comparison of Alexis Sanchez to the goalscoring genius that was Ian Wright.

The main one being, obviously, a shared enthusiasm for the game.

When speaking to the media yesterday, Arsène was asked if Alexis reminded him of any former players.

He responded:

“Ian Wright. He is a bit like Ian Wright.

“His enthusiasm, the enthusiasm of Ian Wright.

“He has that. He is very friendly and bubbly every day.

“He is quieter than Ian Wright but that is not difficult and he doesn’t get booked.”

I bet Alexis doesn’t roller blade into training either.

All season long, we have heard tales of how Alexis trains with 100% intensity.

From the tone of these comments, it’s not difficult to infer that the 25 year old from Tocopilla’s appetite for the game may have surprised some of his colleagues.

Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain seems to be just one of the players particularly taken with Alexis. Just last week, speaking to Sport magazine, the Ox was asked about the kind of impact Alexis has had. He replied,

“Massive. Obviously his goals speak for themselves. But his work rate on and off the pitch- we’ve learned a lot from that as a group.

“It has a knock-on effect, and it brings the best out of you.”

It’s not difficult to surmise that a 27-year-old-striker arriving at Arsenal from Crystal Palace in 1991 may have had a similar effect on the Arsenal side of the day.

Even that side who were, at the time, the kings of England.

I always remember George Graham saying he had a job to motivate some players on match days, but with Wrighty the task was to calm him down. It may be difficult to imagine Alexis needing that kind of management, but then you think of Arsène’s wry comment that Alexis thought he could “defy the medical people” ahead of some game that took place at the weekend.

It reminds me of Wrighty’s determination to play in the 1993 FA Cup Final despite not fully recovering from a broken toe.

Wrighty, you may remember, had injections which enabled him to play in both games required to settle that final and scored in both. The emotional celebration after his first goal represents one of my favourite Arsenal images ever.

It’s impossible not to look at the way both men made an immediate impact on their respective Arsenal teams.

In 1991, Ian Wright scored on his debut, a League Cup game at Leicester and then on his league debut with a hat trick at Southampton. He didn’t really ever stop scoring for us until injuries caught up with him, but his first season for us was astonishing. He scored 24 goals in 30 league games, a strike rate of .8 goals per game.

Alexis with his 18 goals in 32 games hasn’t quite been able to match that ratio, but then it did take him a couple of games to get going. Nor does he play as a centre forward, so you wouldn’t necessarily expect him to match it.

He was still the quickest Arsenal player to ten Premier League goals since Wrighty. So now, whenever he steps out onto the pitch, he is a marked man which is a bit like the position Ian Wright found himself in after that incredible first season and George Graham’s tactical plan becoming, essentially, “Get the ball to Wrighty. Quick!”

Talismen

Despite being surrounded by much better players than Wrighty found himself with from 1992-95, Alexis incredible start to life in London has seen him assume a similar, talismanic, status to the Arsenal legend.

Bearing in mind how Alexis can dominate the ball when he plays, I thought it was interesting that, arguably, our best team performance of the season came in Alexis’ absence last Sunday. (I say that having totally forgotten all about that performance at Manchester City, which Alexis was very much part of!)

Of course, it was then quickly followed by arguably our worst team performance of the season so, only someone very daft would dare to suggest we are a better team without Alexis.

The man Amy Lawrence dubbed the “bionic mosquito” has to be one of the first names on the Arsenal team sheet as, of course, Ian Wright would have been back in the 90’s when love was paranoid.

Bionic Moqsuito

That “bionic mosquito” thing is interesting too.

We’ve all seen how Alexis is constantly in the face of his opponents. His pressing is not something I remember Wrighty doing particularly, but he was clearly still a constant pain in the neck for whoever happened to be marking him. If the prospect of losing him for one single second wasn’t enough to deal with, that defender also had to listen to Wrighty chattering away for 90 minutes.

One of the key similarities between the two strikers, I think, is their ability to conjure something out of nothing. Wrighty was particularly adept at this for a good few years- he had to be in front of our midfield.

As I said earlier, Alexis is surrounded by better players, however, that doesn’t change the fact that he has often scored a goal this season before anyone else has even considered the possibility of a goal.

Think of those goals against Anderlecht and Stoke. I think the one against Stoke, in particular, was a very Ian Wright strike. It wasn’t hit particularly hard, but it caught the keeper off balance and was so accurate that it went in.

Like Wrighty, Alexis doesn’t miss much in front of goal.

Ultimately, none of this matters, they are- for any similarities that exist, two very different players, playing in different Arsenal teams twenty years apart.

However, if Alexis can go on to have a career that even vaguely resembles that of our former number 8, then the next few years are going to be very exciting indeed.