Arsenal: Can Emile Smith Rowe be Denis Suarez’s “elsewhere”?

Arsenal are being advised to “look elsewhere” from Barcelona’s Denis Suarez, and if that’s the case, can the “elsewhere” be Emile Smith Rowe?

Here’s the thing: Denis Suarez has only played 54 minutes for Arsenal, and while I’ve come down a bit hard on him since being so excited to see what he can do, I have to pump the brakes because, well, it’s not even been a whole hour yet.

Maybe I don’t see what all the fuss is about. Maybe I don’t understand why Unai Emery wanted him so badly, but I didn’t understand Matteo Guendouzi either, and that’s panning out pretty well thus far. And I certainly didn’t understand Sokratis but, more of the same.

Suarez may very well pan out, and we can make the deal permanent in the summer, and he can lead our chance creation department and everyone will be chummy. That’s the ideal outcome from this, obviously.

But according to Ray Parlour, the Gunners may have to look elsewhere. Now, Parlour was referring to the fact that Suarez just re-upped on his contract at Barcelona, and many others have pointed out that it seems that Suarez is determined to return to Barca in the end, but we also have to start thinking about the potential outcome of Suarez not being the right guy for the job.

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Maybe his heart isn’t in it, maybe he just doesn’t have the skill set we need from that position.

To me, what we need at the position is pretty evident – grit, determination, drive, passion, creativity and dribbling. Am I wrong? Henrikh Mkhitaryan would have seemed the ideal candidate, but he’s having a hard time finding his feet at the club.

Denis Suarez can only check off about half of those things, Mesut Ozil about half. Alexis Sanchez has a lot of them covered, but is he too much of a snake?

Then there is Emile Smith Rowe. Young, moldable, and already capable of checking off most of those things. He doesn’t have the maturity yet, which will hopefully develop in the Bundesliga, and he needs to learn to be less wasteful, but I’m going to apply the same logic to Smith Rowe as I did to Suarez – if no one else is doing it, then why would he be any worse?

If we do have to look elsewhere when Suarez goes back to Barcelona, can we just lean on Smith Rowe? What’s the worst that can happen?