Alexis shirt Sale Smash Manchester United Record

Sales of Alexis Sanchez shirts smashed the previous Manchester United record after his January arrival, executive vice-chair Ed Woodward has revealed.

Sanchez signed for United in a swap deal which saw Henrikh Mkhitaryan leave for Arsenal during the winter transfer window and the 29-year-old's commercial impact was immediate.

As Woodward explained on Thursday: "Alexis Sanchez has set a new January signing record in terms of shirt sales, three times the previous record."

Woodward was speaking during a conference call with investors following the publication of the club’s second-quarter reports for 2017-18 and he added that the Sanchez-Mkhitaryan swap captured the imagination of supporters across the internet like never before too.

“This trade generated some interesting social media stats," Woodward said. "It was the biggest United post on Instagram with two million likes and comments, the most shared United Facebook post ever, the most retweeted United post ever, and the hashtag #Alexis7 was the number one trending topic on Twitter worldwide