London, Feb 9 (IANS): Manchester United has announced that Chilean forward Alexis Sanchez set a new record of shirt sales after joining the English Premier League (EPL) club during the winter transfer window.

During the presentation of the English football giant's results for the second quarter of the 2017/2018 season on Thursday, Manchester United executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward also revealed that the former Barcelona player broke the Red Devils' social media interaction records, reports Efe.

"Alexis Sanchez has set a new January signing record in terms of shirt sales, three times the previous record," Woodward said.

Sanchez joined Manchester United from Arsenal on a four-year-and-a-half contract in a swap deal that saw Henrikh Mkhitaryan moved to the Gunners from Old Trafford.

Sanchez also set new records on social media as the deal announcement post 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," Woodward added.

"To put that into context, the announcement posts generated 75 percent more interactions than the announcement of the sale of the world's most-expensive player last summer when Neymar moved from Barcelona to Paris Saint-Germain," he continued.