Manchester United: Alexis Sanchez may yet have a role to play under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer

Highest-paid player could fill gap in Solskjaer's attack

Alexis Sanchez’s only football since reporting back from Copa America duty with Chile this summer has been played behind closed doors. Anyone who has witnessed his Manchester United career to date might suggest that is for the best.

But it may soon be time for Sanchez to come out from the shadows and pay back at least a small proportion of his exorbitant salary. Despite interest from several leading Serie A clubs, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer maintained on Friday that the 30-year-old is expected to stay and play.

“Alexis might end up playing a lot more games than you expect,” the United manager said, before repeating a line heard several times during the tail end of last season. “We expect him to come good at this club. He’s quality.”

Solskjaer also took aim at reports that Sanchez has fallen out of his first-team plans. “It’s these stories he’s been put in the reserves. Of course he hasn’t, he’s part of our squad and he is a really good player.”

United may ultimately have little choice in keeping Sanchez past the close of the Italian transfer window next Friday and beyond. As it stands, his weekly pay packet is too heavy for potential suitors to take on.

But the fact is that, following Romelu Luaku’s departure for Internazionale and United’s failure to line up a replacement, Solskjaer’s squad has a gap to fill. As Solskjaer himself admitted on Friday: “We don’t have the biggest forward line in numbers.”

The trip to Molineux will probably come too soon for Sanchez. The club are arranging more behind-closed-doors friendlies - after a 4-0 win over Blackburn Rovers Under-23s - are being arranged for him and other fringe players.

Sanchez will only come back into the first-team fold when he has achieved the same level of fitness as those which enjoyed a full pre-season under Solskjaer. When he does, he is likely to find himself behind even teenager Mason Greenwood in the pecking order.

But after the start-of-season lull has passed, United’s schedule will become busier. The Europa League campaign begins in September and Solskjaer is likely to take domestic cup campaigns seriously, starting with the EFL Cup next month.

As it stands, United are keeping Sanchez “ticking”, in Solskjaer’s words, given that there is every chance he will be needed in the months ahead. “He is doing a little bit of extras,” the United manager added. “He’ll be gradually integrated into more and more playing time.”

Sanchez needs to not only regain his fitness but also form, the type he showed before joining from Arsenal in January 2018 and scoring a grand total of just five goals in 45 appearances.

That appears unlikely. But given a summer transfer window which left United short of cover in attack, and an inability to move the player off their books, they may yet find a use for their most lavishly-paid player.