How Does Alexis Sanchez’ Career Depend on Jose Mourinho’s Future?

Everyone wants to enjoy a good game of football without any worries about tomorrow, right? Unfortunately, things don’t work like that when you are a professional footballer. It doesn’t matter whether you are playing in a farmers’ league or the world’s best league; the pressure mounts when you go pro.

Still, you always get the feeling that some players get it rougher than others. Think Alexis Sanchez for example. In many ways a story of global success up to the time of his Arsenal stint. A South American boy moved to Europe in pursuit of a dream, scaled the rungs until he found himself in Barcelona.

At the Camp Nou, he seemed unable to achieve his full potential and had to make a big decision to switch to Premier League side Arsenal, which was in many ways a move down the rungs. But the big decision paid off mightily as he lit up the league brilliantly and once again attracted the interest of the biggest sides and coaches.

Where Barcelona had been too big for Alexis, the Chilean soon found Arsenal to be too small for him. He again found himself needing to make a big decision. In January 2018, Alexis made a big move to Manchester United.

The move brought him the biggest wage in the division, but his career suffered a big tumble in the over six months that followed. By September 2018, Alexis, formerly among top scorers, found himself among the league’s most dismal performers.

No goals, poor displays and an astounding regularity in surrendering possession. You definitely have to look at the manager factor when analyzing such a decline. United manager Jose Mourinho, himself under pressure, clearly failed to get the best out of Sanchez.

Mourinho had tipped the Chilean to shine in the 2018-19 season, but as of the beginning of October, both men had their futures hanging by the balance.