Stewart Robson believes Arsenal hung Alexis out to dry last season, and they’re trying to sell him.

The ex-Arsenal played turned pundit and commentator has a reputation for being remarkably scathing about anything the Londoners do. While he generally doesn’t pull any punches during his punditry, he seems to enjoy sticking the knife in when it comes to Arsenal.

So it’s proved again with his latest comments on the Alexis Sanchez saga. Speaking to ESPN, Robson said: “They hung him out to dry last season.”

“When he was left out against Liverpool and the crowd went mad, the press went mad, Arsenal put it out that his stats show that he doesn’t run as much as people say he does. 

“They even had two TV pundits that are Arsenal people calling him out in a game. The next game that was on the telly, [it was] ‘look at Sanchez, he’s not doing the work defensively, look, he’s not running’.

“They were trying to hang him out to dry and I don’t think Sanchez liked that very much, as you wouldn’t do as a player.”

There’s a lot we don’t know about the events leading up to Alexis’ omission from the starting line-up against Liverpool. Robson seems to imply the Chilean became unhappy after the event.

But for Wenger to drop his best performing player so suddenly suggests something happened before the match. The fallout from the drama could be interpreted as Arsenal trying to paint Alexis in a negative way.

Sky Sports‘ article about running stats was strangely timed. However, it takes a real cynic to attribute all that to the Gunners. If Arsenal went as far as to deliberately tarnish Alexis’ image, surely the relationship between player and club would be beyond repair.

Yet, with the way Arsene Wenger has been talking, that doesn’t seem to be the case. Rather, Wenger is hopeful Alexis will extend his contract, and has frequently denied the player wants to leave.

Robson, of course, believes that Arsenal must be looking to sell Alexis. “Should they let him go? Absolutely. PSG, now, they’re almost trying to frighten Arsenal. Arsenal want to get rid of Alexis Sanchez.

“Why do they want to get rid? Because I think he’s caused problems last year. They are trying to put out that he’s caused problems last year. They’ve bought [Alexandre] Lacazette, they’re looking to buy somebody else.

“Sanchez doesn’t really want to stay at Arsenal and do you really want to keep a player that next year can go for free? Alexis has made his mind up he doesn’t want to stay at Arsenal and why would you try and keep a player that doesn’t want to stay at your football club?

“So, I think PSG are almost trying to frighten Arsenal into thinking, ‘We’ve got nowhere else to sell him’. They might have to keep him for another year so they might be trying to put the money up.”

This is contrary to what Wenger has said repeatedly throughout the summer. He makes out the situation to be more desperate than it probably is. If Arsenal were so eager to sell Alexis you’d think they’d be more receptive to PSG’s and Manchester City’s interest.

There’s still a month left to go in this transfer window. A lot will be said in that time, but fingers crossed Wenger does stick to his word and keeps Alexis at the club.