The Arsenal forward needed no time no get used to English football and Manchester City have to try to stop him on Sunday

Arsène Wenger caught up with Alexis Sánchez, which is no mean feat, and he presented him with the options. It was the Chilean’s first Christmas in English football and the Arsenal manager wanted to know when he might like a rest. Wenger had been a little worried. “It’s a shock to the system for everybody who is not used to it,” he said. “You have to say ‘be careful’. In England, there’s no stop in winter.”

Sánchez’s response was simple and, in so many ways, it cut to the essence of who he is as a player and a person. “No chance. I play.”

He played. He did not miss a minute in the three Premier League fixtures that were squeezed in between Boxing Day and New Year’s Day and he was withdrawn only in the 84th minute of the FA Cup third-round win over Hull City on 4 January. Overall, he has missed just two of Arsenal’s 31 matches this season, while he has started in each of Chile’s six friendlies.

It has been easy to fear for Sánchez, given his no-holds-barred style and the fact that, as an Arsenal player, he is surely due to feel a muscular twang at some point. But the talk of fitness red zones has given way to sheer marvel, the feeling that nothing can touch this bionic competitor and the broader discussion that he is the successor to Luis Suárez as the league’s outstanding player.

Sánchez’s compatriot, Manuel Pellegrini, certainly thinks so. The Manchester City manager must find a way to stop him at the Etihad Stadium on Sunday but he has talked up how the forward has shown the appetite to improve his game year after year. “I’m happy for him because at this time he is the best player in English football,” Pellegrini said.

It is supposed to take time for overseas players to settle but Sánchez has barely broken stride since his £31m signing from Barcelona in July.

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Wenger spoke towards the end of last season about how he felt Mesut Özil, the club record signing from Real Madrid in September 2013, would be a contender for the Player of the Year award this time out but there has been no need for patience or kid gloves with Sánchez.

Özil did not enjoy a pre-season, having joined on transfer deadline day, whereas Sánchez had the full period to get to know his new team-mates and surroundings. His jet-propelled adaptation, though, has simply been down to the perfect match between his qualities and Premier League football.

His combination of pace, power, incision and ruthlessness is effective enough but when it is allied to relentless industry, it is deadly and more than sufficient for him to be mentioned as world-class by almost any football figure who has stood in front of a microphone this season.

Recent weeks at the Emirates Stadium have been characterised by the struggles of visiting managers to conceal their admiration for Sánchez, even after he has effectively destroyed their teams. Last Sunday, it was Mark Hughes of Stoke City, who worked with the Argentina striker Carlos Tevez at Manchester City.

“Sánchez is similar to Tevez,” Hughes said. “South American players do have this passion and drive, a willingness to work and make things happen. He clearly has those traits.”

The Sunday before it was Steve Bruce of Hull. “I have to say that Sánchez’s hunger is what every player should be looking at,” Bruce said. “Forget the ability he has got, it’s the endeavour he puts in. That’s what makes the world-class players and, at the moment, you would have to say he is right up there with them all.”

There have been numerous examples of Sánchez’s desire, his determination to make the difference when matches are in the balance but perhaps none better than the moment when he sprinted and leapt and stretched to head Arsenal into a 1-0 lead in the 70th minute against Burnley in early November.

“Those players are relentless in their thinking,” Sean Dyche, the Burnley manager, said. “He kept going and going, trying to forge a chance. Then, he finally nicks one. He has the quality but he also has the will and desire to play hard. I said to my lads: ‘That is the top of the market’.”

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Sánchez’s numbers have been eye-catching, with the headline items being the 18 goals and nine assists in all competitions. Nine of the goals have come at 0-0 in matches while he also scored at 1-1, with a screaming volley, in the 2-2 draw against Manchester City at the Emirates in September. That was probably his most spectacular, although the free-kick against Southampton in the Capital One Cup (yes, he started in that too) runs it close.

It is the more minute statistics that shine a light on Sánchez’s incredible impact. According to Opta, only Cesc Fàbregas, the Chelsea midfielder, has created more chances in the Premier League this season than Sánchez, who makes one every 29 minutes. To put it into context among leading goalscorers, the next best performer is Chelsea’s Diego Costa, who creates a chance every 51 minutes.

Sánchez blitzes his rival top scorers – Costa, Sergio Agüero, Charlie Austin, Saido Berahino, Papiss Cissé and Wilfried Bony – in other areas, such as passes made and number of dribbles, while no forward has made more sprints than him. He is third on the list for distance covered, behind Graziano Pellè and Robin van Persie.

At the Arsenal training ground, they remember their first glimpse of the player who would become their talisman when he paid a flying visit to undertake his medical and the in-house media signing spiel. Sánchez is an extremely reluctant interviewee but the bigger problem was that there were balls and a goal in the indoor playing area. He just wanted to blast them at the net or muck about playing keepy-uppy. As for the medical, he would manage to cough in the right places.

Wenger has noted how Sánchez does not walk out for training, he sprints, while Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, his Arsenal team-mate, has likened him to the Duracell bunny. Sánchez merely wants to play and play, and it has always been that way, since he was a boy in Tocopilla in northern Chile. It was a tough place and Sánchez would kick a ball about wherever he could, on the streets or random patches of land, with two stones marking out the goal. The fires were stoked back then. He knew what he wanted.

Sánchez played with Radamel Falcao at River Plate in 2007-08 – the Colombia striker is now at Manchester United – but it is Suárez with whom his destiny seems intertwined. Arsenal wanted Suárez in the summer of 2013, only they could not prise him from Liverpool, but Barcelona could, last summer. To offset the £75m outlay, they had to cash in on somebody and that somebody was Sánchez. To thicken the plot, Liverpool wanted Sánchez but, happily for Arsenal, Sánchez wanted them. Who knows where Sánchez might have ended up if Arsenal had got Suárez?

Sánchez has been helped at Arsenal by the presence of seven first-team squad members whose first language is Spanish. He is working at his English but he cannot use it yet in conversation. Polite and humble, Sánchez does nothing off the pitch to invite publicity. His football is talking loudly.