Former Manchester United defender Paul Parker has called Arsenal a “laughing stock” over the decision to keep Alexis Sanchez.

It seems Arsenal can’t win with the media when it comes to Alexis. In an article on Eurosport, Paul Parker has claimed that “keeping Sanchez doesn’t make sense in a football sense or a financial sense” and says that “Arsenal have been a laughing stock for a few years now”.

When it comes to finances, there is some debate over whether selling Alexis would be a good idea. Sell him now, pick up £50-60m and you certainly appear to be better off at first. But waste that money trying to replace him and finish outside of the Champions League places again and suddenly it doesn’t seem like such a smart business plan.

However, when it comes to on-pitch performance, Parker’s argument is a bit bizarre. Making unfounded claims that Alexis “doesn’t want to be there anymore” and “one bad apple spoils the barrel”, Paul implies that Alexis would want to leave so badly that he won’t perform for the Gunners and he’d ruin the dressing room atmosphere.

There is little to no evidence that this is true. Last season, it sometimes seemed to be the case that Alexis was unhappy and yet he was the Gunners’ top scorer and created the most goals too.

The dressing room did sometimes seem to be off, I felt, but there’s no way of knowing if that had anything to do with Alexis. Just as likely it was to do with the bad results and the uncertainty around Arsène Wenger.

Parker’s claims are guesswork at best and a convenient backtrack from the usual line about Arsenal letting players go too easily. He asks rhetorically: “surely Arsenal’s scouting department is capable of finding someone capable of filling his boots?”, as if picking up a player who can get you 30 goals and 19 assists for £50-60m is a piece of cake in the current market.

When Neymar is going for £200m and Lukaku is going for £75m, I doubt it.