Arsenal: Teasing Denis Suarez simply delays the inevitable

Arsenal have now used Denis Suare for all of 38 minutes, and yes, that means that it’s time to hyper analyze how that half hour-ish has gone.

Arsenal made one whole move in January, and it wasn’t even a permanent move – at least not yet. But the point of these next few months, at least for Denis Suarez, will be to convince the team that it should be permanent.

He’s been here for two weeks now and seen two matches and he was used for a whole 38 minutes. While he was not being used, the club’s attacking midfielders, AKA, his exact competition, has produced all of two chances. That includes Sead Kolasinac, Alex Iwobi (twice), Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Aaron Ramsey.

Two whole chances from creative midfielders. Everything else has come from wingbacks and strikers. Meaning that the big ol’ creative midfield has been massively underperforming, just like they’ve been doing for months now.

In 38 minutes of play across two matches, Suarez hasn’t created any chances. I’d make the argument that he hasn’t had the chance. I don’t think he’s had 20 touches total in those two matches.

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Again, not complaining. It’s part of the acclimation process. But all it does is delay the inevitable. The inevitable being that, while we wait for Suarez to take his place as the solution, the problem will continue on the same trajectory that it was already on. Why would anything change now?

However, in those 38 minutes, Denis Suarez has done two things deserves a nod of being noticed. He has completed 94% of his passes, and in the ratio of dribbling to retaining possession, he is at an even split. All small sample sizes, which you can disregard at your own wishes, I won’t judge you.

Baptisms by fire are a risky thing to engage in. I manage to always advocate for them, but then again, I’ve never actually seen one engaged to its full potential. It usually fails. But there isn’t really a lot of leeway when it comes to Suarez. We kind of have to know, beyond a few sporadic performances or a generally positive outlook after a month.

Anyway, I said I wouldn’t complain by his lack of usage and I’m trying really hard not to.

So I just want to say one more thing – Europa League is coming up. BATE Borisov. If you can’t start him against them, then… well, then maybe I’ll complain.