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Sanchez’s First Goal Takes Arsenal to Europe

Alexi Sanchez started paying off some of his huge £35m fee Wednesday night by scoring the only goal that booked Arsenal’s place in the Champions League proper.

But Arsene Wenger vowed not to spend the windfall on a new striker – despite revealing Olivier Giroud could be out until January.

Giroud had surgery on a broken leg hours before Sanchez scored the winner for ten-man Arsenal against Besiktas on a nerve-jangling night at the Emirates.

Wenger said: “Giroud will be out until the end of December or the beginning of January to be competitive at the top level.

“You will ask me straight away who we will buy? At the moment, no one. Can Sanchez play there for three or four months? He can play his whole life at centre-forward.

“I bought him to play as a striker, not to play only on the flanks.

“He produced the performance we wanted, technically, tactically and mentally. He had a good game, not only on the technical side but the fighting side.

“He was mobile, dangerous and has shown as well he has great fighting spirit, qualities that will be very important in the Premier League.”

Pressed on the long list of strikers Arsenal have been linked with this summer, Wenger took the unusual step of ruling them all out.

He said: “You want to make anybody happy just buy all these players. But what is important is the performance on the pitch, and the solidarity we have shown tonight.

“Having said that, if you look at the players on the bench and those injured, we have players you know. You cannot just buy when the player is injured.”

Arsenal rode their luck, surviving two penalty appeals and hanging on for dear life after Mathieu Debuchy’s 75th-minute red card but are in the group stage for the 17th straight season.