In the year we signed Alexis Sanchez, he cost more than these other big statement signings of that year:
Costa
Fabregas
Cuadrado
Lukaku
Lallana
Bony
Mangala
Shaw
Even today he is the 32nd most expensive transfer of all time (apparently) and like, top 5 of our transfers of all time.
He may represent a bargain in terms of value vs cost, but he certainly was NOT, a ‘bargain buy’ that our transfer strategy pre-Ozil represented.
Don’t confuse today’s prices with those of a year or two ago, Alexis was a huge acquisition and a huge outlay.
Alexis is on a different level to all those players you mentioned IMO, but yeah I know what you were trying to say you were more referring to our transfer strategy and I was just being a smartarse.
Was it? Alexis and Santi barely speak English either and Alexis in his first season here surely didn’t speak any more than Gabriel. Hell even managers like Poch have succeeded without speaking English.
I think the problem was rather that he isn’t good.
I think it’s probably a lot more important that centre backs are in constant comunication with each other than it is for other positions on the pitch… a CB that dosent understand a word his CB partner says is a lot more of a problem than an attacking player not understanding a word the midfeilders say for example
Gabriel’s lack of English and a breakdown in communication has actually been cited as the reason we conceded certain goals though - Marcus Rashford’s for example. Even Wenger blamed his English for that one. Wenger also said a few times that it is a big problem and might cost us goals - particularly for a defender, as Kaner pointed out.
In the end we’re talking about one or two word commands, though, the game doesn’t give time for anything more (even when playing with people who speak the same language as you, your communication is rarely more than one or two words in game). How long could it really take him to learn the 10 or so one word commands? I doubt more than a week. Any other more complicated instruction could be given to him at half time in Spanish or Portuguese.
I think the Gabriel language thing is just kind of codeword for: this guy isn’t a very intelligent footballer. We talk about this guy like he came from some indigenous tribe or something and spoke some strange dialect that wasn’t translatable. How many times in the history of football have players who didn’t speak a lick of the language in the country they were going to play gone over and been fine, learned what they needed to know, and got on with it? Countless…
I meant in his first season when he didn’t speak any but didn’t make that understood in my post.
