Petr Čech says he’s spoken to Alexis Sanchez and the Chilean is still fully motivated to help Arsenal win as much as possible.

Čech was speaking to the Evening Standard ahead of Arsenal’s game against FC Köln, and said that his talks with Alexis went well: “I spoke with Alexis and he wants to win. Sometimes people say ‘he does this, he does that’ but I think in a way, he is a guy who plays with all his passion and all his heart.”

Arsene Wenger described Petr Cech as one of Arsenal’s leaders, and his latest comments on teammate Alexis show exactly why.

Arsenal paid £10m to sign Cech from Chelsea in 2015, a goalkeeper who holds the record for most Premier League clean sheets. The 35-year-old has been a good servant to the club and was 19th in the table for most cost-effective players last season.


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See infographic here via www.sbo.net.

From my best recollection, it seems Cech have been taking care of Alexis and making sure he’s happy, after a crazy transfer deadline day that saw the 28-year-old almost sold to Manchester City. For the deal to then breakdown could play havoc with a player’s head.

To me, Alexis doesn’t often hide his emotions when he’s on the pitch. I’ve long thought him as a very expressive player, which others may label as a fault, but many praise him for. But as long as the team is winning, he should stay happy.

Unfortunately, winning is the one thing Alexis’ teams definitely haven’t been doing. The Chilean has started three matches for club and country and has lost all three. Arsenal’s loss to Liverpool was disappointing, but Alexis got a particularly hard time for Chile’s losses to Paraguay and Bolivia, with one former coach even calling him “fat”.

An in form and confident Alexis can be deadly, as we saw last season with his 30 goals and 19 assists. Hopefully he’ll be determined to put things right this campaign.