Arsenal News: Alexis Sanchez is Priceless and the Best Signing in Years, Says Thierry Henry

When Danny Welbeck scored that wonderful hat-trick against Galatasaray in the Champions League, comparisons were immediately made to the one person who is incomparable – Thierry Henry – particularly due to the manner of the finishes in that superb performance.

However, while Welbeck has faded back into the shadows a little bit, it is one man who has been lighting it up like only he can consistently, game after game, for Arsenal this season, and as far as arguably the greatest player to ever play for the North London club is concerned, Alexis Sanchez is priceless.

Sanchez has been outstanding for Arsenal since signing last summer from Barcelona, scoring goals with aplomb, while also garnering the assists with glee, something Henry was a master at.

You only need to look to the last game against Stoke, when Sanchez scored two – one of them an absolute peach – and made the other to help Arsenal to a comfortable 3-0 win at the Emirates.

It's performances like those which raise that feeling of "have Arsenal finally found Henry's successor?" and even the great man is a big fan of the Chilean.

"He scores goals and doesn't need a lot of opportunities to put the ball in the net," Henry was quoted as saying by the Daily Mail. "That is very important.

"He is a very, very good player and you know that if he is on tune, then Arsenal have a lot of chances to win the game.

"I am trying to think if there has been a better signing in the last five or six years. It is still early days but so far it is very good. He is doing extremely well. He is going to score goals but it is his all-round game that I am so impressed with.

"That has no price."

Henry feels Sanchez could be the player that the fans can fawn upon and sing their hearts out for years to come – someone, who brings back that excitement, that "va va voom" so synonymous with the Frenchman, back to Arsenal.

"Arsenal fans have been waiting to have a player like that," he added. "Finally they have one. He struggled at the beginning, like everybody, but when he got into a rhythm, you can see the quality.

"We should all be happy with him. He is going to be a great player for many years."

However, there is that slight danger of Arsenal becoming too reliant on their superstar forward. Liverpool's woes are only too clear after letting go of Luis Suarez to Barcelona, and the Gunners will be wary of becoming as reliant as the Reds were on their main man.

Henry, though, knows Arsenal and the manager Arsene Wenger inside out, and with the kind of quality around Sanchez – Santi Cazorla, Mesut Ozil, Olivier Giroud, Theo Walcott, Aaron Ramsey, to name a few – the English Premier League legend has little doubts that his former team can function even when Sanchez is not at his best.

"No," Henry said when asked if Arsenal are all about Sanchez this season. "In some of the games when he hasn't appeared, Arsenal have won them.

"Sanchez didn't have a great game against West Ham -- and they won. He didn't have a great game against QPR -- and they won. So there you go."

A lot of pressure has been heaped on Wenger this season, with Arsenal well off the pace in the title race, meaning it is going to be another campaign when they will have to battle for a top four spot.

Injuries, of course, have played their part, but the Arsenal manager has come under fire from the fans, encapsulated by that incident when Wenger was abused by supporters in a train station after the defeat to Stoke in December.

"Fans do have a voice, I understand that," said Henry. "But what I saw after the Stoke game was out of order.

"You can express that you are upset but to do it in that way was a bit too much. In the game at the moment, unfortunately, that is the way it is."

So, can Arsenal win their first Premier League title since 2004 in the coming seasons? "It has to be a team effort," added the striker who recently retired from the game. "They don't seem so far away.

"Having said that, they are still some distance from the first spot. It is going to take a team effort to get there."