Saturday 20 October 2018 12:50, UK
Alexis Sanchez was wrong to join Manchester United over rivals City where he would have been a "superstar", Tim Sherwood told The Debate.
Sanchez scored the winner in United's 3-2 comeback win over Newcastle before the international break, and is likely to feature in this afternoon's showdown at Stamford Bridge with Chelsea, live on Sky Sports Premier League from 11.30am.
But the Chile forward has had little else to smile about since completing a January move from Arsenal, which saw Henrikh Mkhitaryan move in the other direction.
His goal against Newcastle was just his third in the league for United and his first of the season, a figure in stark contrast to the 24 he plundered during his final full campaign at the Emirates in 2016/17.
Sanchez was subject of an unsuccessful bid from Manchester City during the summer transfer window after that spectacular season, but Pep Guardiola's side saw a £60m offer rejected, before they were beaten to his signature by United in January of this year.
Tim Sherwood told The Debate the move had proven the wrong one for Sanchez - and had he joined United's cross-city rivals, things would be looking very different.
"I think he made the wrong decision," he said. "He had the opportunity to go to Man City, and if he took that option he would be a superstar now. For whatever reason, he chose to go to Manchester United, and it hasn't worked out.
"It's money, possibly, and that's up to him but you can't argue that he's not chosen one of the biggest clubs in the world. He possibly didn't know how it would turn out, and he couldn't have imagined what a nightmare it would be for him.
"Hopefully he bounces and goes into the next game with a shot in the arm after the goal he scored against Newcastle, a winning goal, which got everyone lifted and hopefully he'll take that performance to show what he can do.
"But at the moment, he's been nothing like the Alexis Sanchez we've seen in the Premier League and loved to watch for five or six years.
"I hate making excuses for players. We can make all the excuses, he can have all the excuses, but he needs to look in the mirror and ask himself if he's doing enough to get into the team and playing like he was at Arsenal."
Fellow guest Steve Sidwell questioned whether Sanchez's lack of form was down to circumstances off-the-field, rather than Jose Mourinho's penchant for a more defensive style than Guardiola or former Arsenal boss Wenger.
He said: "You look at him when he was at Arsenal, playing his best football, being in London, being the main man in the dressing room. He got the move up to the north, the weather's not the best, and is it more of a personal factor where he's driving into training straight away feeling downbeat?
"Some people get the release from training, but if he's going in and out every day unhappy. Is it the personal factor that's more overriding than the form factor?"
