Despite this, Arsene Wenger hinted that it wouldn’t be enough to keep Sanchez out of his side’s trip to Norwich.
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“I love a bargain”, the boss said at his weekly press conference.
With Mikel Arteta, Jack Wilshere, Tomas Rosicky and Dannny Welbeck ruled out, Wenger said he could look to strengthen the squad in January, but only if he found the right quality.
Alexis Sanchez is an injury doubt for the match, but Aaron Ramsey and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain are both fighting fit and are expected to play a part.
The return of Oxlade-Chamberlain at least relieves Wenger of some of the pressure over selecting his midfield, and there was an extra boost with the news that Theo Walcott has returned to training ahead of his own comeback from a hamstring injury picked up in late October.
Arsenal received a Champions League lifeline on Tuesday courtesy of Alexis Sanchez’s double and assistance from Bayern Munich. “He has no big hurdle to get across today and hopefully he will be successful”.
The Frenchman cited midfield maestros Patrick Viera and Mesut Ozil as value-for-money signings but admitted, in words that will conjure images now synonymous with Black Friday of frenzied shoppers fighting over goods, that he didn’t understand people buying more TVs than they needed.
Arsenal’s defeat at the hands of West Brom last weekend saw them drop to fourth place on the table, with Leicester now topping the Premier League. But if they don’t need one, why should they buy two?
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Hoddle told ITV Sport: “Since he’s been at Arsenal, we haven’t seen enough of him getting in the box. It was an unlucky day, that can happen in a season but after it is how you respond to that and we did that well on Tuesday”.
