Alexis Sanchez and Mesut Özil have been the Gunners’ star players for the last few years, but the question of which one is more important is being asked more and more.
Both are in the last year of their current contracts, so it’s probable that at least one of them will leave. If one of them does, that will free up a lot of room in the budget to spend on extending the contract of the other, so to some extent it makes sense for people to ask which the Gunners would be better off keeping.
We’re going to try and determine which of the two has been more important to the side since joining:
Other thoughts
I’d argue that Alexis wouldn’t have joined in the first place if it wasn’t for Özil signing on the previous summer. Playing alongside Özil was clearly a big draw, whilst it’s hard to point to a world class signing Arsenal have made because of Alexis.
On the other side of things, Alexis has scored important goals in important games so many times I’ve lost count.
Contrary to popular belief, I don’t think Özil is bad in the big games, but it’s hard to deny that Alexis is often even better.
He’s scored in cup finals, and against pretty much every big team we’ve played, as well as stepping up in the big moments, like for a penalty in the 98th minute, or scoring against Bayern in the CL knockout rounds before the defence imploded.
Overall my personal opinion is that the team would miss Mesut more, even if Alexis is often an outstanding individual.
But honestly it will be tough to lose either, and really disappointing to lose both.