Manchester United fans haven’t taken long to turn on Alexis Sanchez and when Rio Ferdinand had a dig at the player for looking like a stranger in his new side, they agreed.

I don’t like to say I told you so but…

“When he was at Arsenal, he was the man everyone looked at for motivation,” Ferdinand said after watching United limp out of the Champions League. “He looks like a stranger in this team.”

As he left for United, many of their fans thought Arsenal fans were just being bitter as they highlighted the numerous problems with Alexis Sanchez. Sure, he’s a brilliant player when it’s going his way, but he is not a team player and is one of the most wasteful ‘top’ players in the game today.

It’s easy to ignore many of these negatives, however, when he’s banging in goals for your team but this season those have dried up and the reasons are not all to do with Arsenal.

Chile failing to make the World Cup in Russia seemed to hit him particularly hard and has certainly had an affect on his season. But when it was looking like he was on his way out the door, I pondered if the club buying him would get value for money with his signing.

Strikers who score 20+ goals a season regularly are few and far between. Those that do tend to be at clubs like Bayern Munich, Real Madrid and Barcelona. Alexis Sanchez had already been at Barcelona and they had deemed him not good enough.

Alexis has never been one of those players. Before last season’s 24 league goals, his highest goal tally in a campaign was 19 (Barcelona, 13/14). Then 16 (Arsenal, 14/15), 13 (Arsenal, 15/16), and 12 (Barcelona, 11/12, Udinese, 10/11). That’s seven seasons Alexis has made double figures for league goals but only three above 15 and one above 20.

For a player whose game is based on speed and the ability to move his body quickly, he is not likely to be a fine wine that gets better with age.

Jose Mourinho was right when he said moving mid-season has also affected Alexis. That was bound to be the case, at least to some degree. But if Arsenal were such a burden on him, the act of leaving should have freed him up to perform better.

It hasn’t.

Alexis will improve. He’s a better player than we’ve seen from him this season. But the flaws that were in his game at Arsenal, and formed part of the reason Barcelona let him go, will remain. Goals make those flaws acceptable, but Alexis turns 30 in the middle of next season.

In the meantime, he’s gone from a team where he was the main man to another name in a star-studded side. He likes to feel valuable and that’s not the impression you get when you read what many United fans are saying about him. It’s doubtful they feel like making idiots of themselves by producing a banner for Alexis’s dogs any time soon.

Click next to read some of the best responses to Ferdinand’s quote from United fans on their Reddit forum:

Manchester United fans on Reddit:

Honest opinion: We didn’t need Sanchez.

Forcing Sanchez is basically sending a message to the team that they aren’t good enough and puts pressure on Alexis to be the savior.

This is what I’ve been wondering. Everyone else has had to earn their spot on the team and some don’t seem to earn it despite good performances and then comes Sanchez and walks straight into the undroppable-section of the team. How? Why? All these players with decent chemistry going around who are doing good get dismissed as soon as we get one “premier league tested” player. I’ve never been particularly excited about Sanchez and I am less so every game he plays. Sure, he seems to do a lot of effort on the pitch, running and chasing balls but he also seems to lose the ball all the time and he clearly lacks chemistry with the players for now. I don’t blame him for that. He just arrived. But why is the newest arrival automatically played and forced on to the pitch? Even if it worked out with Matic, it doesn’t mean we should do it with everyone.

Everyone in this sub with the circlejerk when he signed ‘f5 f5 f5 f5’ etc. I was the least excited for this transfer. Martial and rashford fighting it out for lw was perfect.

I think you’re exactly right, and your comments over time have been proved correct. Curious what you think the reason we picked him up was – any chance we got him just so city wouldn’t have him?

As someone who was also skeptical of the signing I think that was part of it. I also think Jose knows we’re not getting Griezmann and wanted a big player to come in and Alexis was available (not to mention Mkhi was surplus). I assumed he’d be playing RW or that Jose would have a plan for him, but that doesn’t appear to be the case. I was worried about the longterm ramifications of this signing (likely force Martial out of the club — huge wages for a winger that’s already 29 yrs old — albatross in the lineup), but it’s looking bad in the shortterm too. I truly am baffled by how poorly he’s played and how he is being used. It reminds me of the Rooney thing all over again.

I was really hoping for Ozil at the time and, although the Ozil rumours were quite weak, I was confused as fuck when we got linked to Sanchez instead.

same.. i feel like the only reason we got him was to stop pep from getting him.. funny thing is no one needed him.. neither them nor us.. Ozil would have been the better swap.. if we had to swap

The problem is, that Sanchez is someone that needs the team built around him to see the best from him.Jose isn’t going to do that, he’ll just expect him to play like a donkey running down the flank more than anything. A shame and a waste of his talent, but I still have hope we can free up his role in the team. You’re not going to get the best out of Alexis Sanchez by expecting him to follow tactics to the letter etc are you?

The only signing that has hurt this team, I still didn’t think we needed him and Rio’s quote on him being an stranger is absolutely astute.

When Alexis gets the ball he either tries to dribble through 2 players or some 20 meter chip through pass.He completely ignores fullbacks when they overlap. He’s done it multiple times with both Valencia and Young in many games since he joined us. I don’t really know why we got him.

He drifts around the left and centre and just flicks the ball up in the air before losing it. He does this whilst getting into Pogba’s way and taking Martial’s position.

As it stands, we’d have been far better off letting Mkhi leave and going for a central midfielder to play 433 more often.

It was an impulse purchase. What we really needed was Ozil if you have to choose one from Arsenal. We bought Sanchez at the fear of him joining City.

Excuses. How many preseason did he have at Arsenal? WC 2014, Copa America 2015 and 16, Confederations Cup 2017. Had total freedom at Arsenal, hence the ridiculous numbers. He’s on the decline, will be playing in China within 2 years