“I am happy in London and I hope to finish my contract.

“I like to stay in a city and in a team, but in a team that is a winner, that has a winning mentality.

“I’m 28-years-old, I still have a lot ahead of me. I am a player that takes great care of myself.”

Alexis Sanchez’s explosive interview with El Grafico back in his Chilean homeland can be construed one of two ways. 1) The attacker is telling Arsenal to buck their ideas up in order to keep him around. 2) He’s sending a message that he wants to relocate to a winning team in London.

If he means the latter – the Gunners have won just two major trophies since their 2003/04 Premier League title success – the door has well and truly been opened for Chelsea to make their move this summer. Indeed, The Guardian have already revealed that Sanchez is Antonio Conte’s major transfer target for the coming off-season and subsequent reports from the Mirror have hinted that £50m will be enough to get a deal done, so all that was seemingly left was the player’s willingness to move from the north to the west of England’s capital city, which he has, very nearly, given.

Chelsea, as we know, are a winning team. The Blues, barring a dramatic late collapse, will claim their fourth Premier League title this season and have held silverware aloft with regularity since Roman Abramovich changed the whole landscape of the club, and the game in this country, with his 2003 take-over. Like or loath the Stamford Bridge club, they know how to get things done on the pitch, so being in blue rather than red will boost Sanchez’s own chances of satisfying his burning desire to win.

But this move is a two-way street of a transfer, with Chelsea needing Sanchez as much as he needs them. 2017/18 should offer them the chance to become the first team to successfully defend a Premier League title since Manchester United managed their third success on the bounce in 2008/09. Given that this very feat had been accomplished on six occasions since the 1992/93 inception of the Premier League, it shows that nowadays achieving back-to-back successes has got a whole lot harder.

Why is this? There are a myriad of reasons, one being the sheer level of competition at the top end of the table. Sir Alex Ferguson, a man who knows a fair bit about winning league titles, claimed it was getting “harder” to top the table back in 2012, and that was before the top four became the top six it is this season. Five very good sides will miss out on the biggest prize this term, while two will not even make it into the Champions League on finishing position alone, which is a far cry from the days of Everton reaching the qualifiers via breaking into the top quartet in 2004/05 with an ageing Duncan Ferguson making 35 appearances along the way.

Alongside, and as a result of, this, the sheer effort and emotion that goes into getting over the line appears to be more draining than ever. Chelsea know this better than most after Jose Mourinho’s 2014/15 success, which was followed by the Portuguese’s sacking just a few months into the following campaign. Other league-winning managers such as Roberto Mancini, Claudio Ranieri and Carlo Ancelotti have been dismissed from posts relatively soon after tasting success, too, while David Moyes lasted less than a season at Man United following their most recent league win in 2012/13.

But, where does Sanchez come into this? Well, as we all know, the forward is a fierce competitor and a born winner. His frustration when Arsenal have underperformed has been there for all to see since his 2014 arrival from Barcelona, where he was a La Liga and Copa del Rey champion, while his winning mentality stretches through his career with Chile (two Copa America’s in a competitive CONMEBOL region) and his time with Colo-Colo in his homeland, as well as River Plate in Argentina. This injection of determination might be just what is needed to lift a Chelsea team that’s shown in the past it can succumb to ‘second season syndrome’, while Sanchez’s quality (his stats for this season are above) will be a shot in the arm for the entire squad – top players want to play with top players, after all.

Put this alongside a front three of, potentially, Eden Hazard, Diego Costa and Sanchez and Chelsea suddenly look like not just one of the most fearsome teams in England, but the entire continent, which, allied to having a wily, experienced manager like Antonio Conte, is almost a guarantee for success.

There appears to be a recipe for Chelsea to end the back-to-back league failure record of the past seven seasons, and the secret ingredient may be a dash of Chile…

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