Alexis Sanchez out for the year and will finish 2018 with less goals than Smalling

Reuben Pinder

Alexis Sanchez’s year looks over.

Look, it didn’t really get started to be fair but the Chilean has suffered a hamstring injury that could rule him out until January. The Manchester United forward sustained the injury in training on Thursday.

He was said to have let out what Jose Mourinho called a “painful scream” as he suffered the tear during a training session at Carrington.

Sánchez will undergo a scan today, but he is expected to be out for at least six weeks, and will therefore miss the busy Christmas period, during which United will play four matches in 13 days.

It means that he’ll miss some key matches for Manchester United but, truthfully, a lot of fans won’t be too bothered that they’ll miss him standing motionless on the left and sinking the ball straight off a defender.

United have games coming up against his former club Arsenal and trip to Anfield on December 16 too but Mourinho is fearing that the 29-year-old will be out for a long time.

But it’s not like his record has been too prolific for his new club, with Chris Smalling hitting the net more times in this calendar year.

Alexis Sanchez will end 2018 with fewer Premier League goals than Chris Smalling & Patrick van Aanholt, the same number as Oumar Niasse & Lewis Dunk and only one more than Shane Long.

— Richard Jolly 🇺🇦 (@RichJolly) November 30, 2018

This injury comes just days after United lost in-form defender Victor Lindelöf to a thigh strain. The Swede is also expected to be out for a similar amount of time, returning just after the turn of the year.

“There have been no scans yet but the player is experienced, the player knows what the injury is and also from the top of my experience, just the painful scream and the way the injury happened, I know it’s going to be for a long time,” Mourinho said.

“It is not the little muscular injury that in one week or 10 days the player is ready. It is, for me and also for Alexis, the feelings before the scans is that the grade [of tear] is different than the Lindelof one and the Lindelof one was not an easy one so Alexis has what I used to call an aggressive muscular injury. He has an important injury. From the top of my experience he is not playing this year.”