Unai Emery says Denis Suarez has already shown signs of progress during his first week at Arsenal and will prove his worth in coming matches.
The Spaniard, who made only nine appearances for Barcelona this season before sealing his loan to the Emirates, made his debut against former club Manchester City on Sunday, coming on for 24 minutes as the Blues coasted to a 3-1 win.
While it would be churlish to judge a player on such a short cameo, it’s fair to say Denis looked a tad rusty as the Blues ran rings around us. Having worked with the player for a season at Sevilla, Emery isn’t worried about the player getting up to speed.
“The first day last week was adaption to us and also with 25 minutes against Manchester City,” he told Thursday’s pre-Huddersfield press conference.
“But already from the first day with us, he was already with good performance, but this week he worked Monday with our coaches and also yesterday.
“Today he is working with different adaptation and better than last week. I hope he will continue, he is improving every day with us.
“Then I hope he can show in the next matches how he can help us better than in the first match against Manchester City.”
Emery also confirmed that there’s a chance Ainsley Maitland-Niles and Henrikh Mkhitaryan could make the trip to the John Smith’s Stadium.
“He [Ainsley] stopped for 10 days but physically I think he is okay. He was working with us well today and if tomorrow he is continuing with a good feeling, he can also be with us on Saturday,” confirmed Emery.
On Micki, he added: “We thought last week that with two training sessions after six weeks being injured, it was not enough to play against Manchester City. But after this week, playing with the under-23s and working with us, I think it is the first time I can think about him being with us.”
I think suarez will start on saturday. And sir Özil will stay back home for tactical reasons.
Tactical or physical. Let’s get surprised!
Yep I wouldn’t be opposed to seeing Suarez start ahead of Iwobi, just to see what he can do. I still don’t get why we aren’t using Ozil or Ramsey more, but at least they’ll be fresh for the Europa games. Also let’s shake things up at the back and start Jenkinson and Mavraponos tomorrow..
Özil being out of the picture is very clear, he has no future with is, and while it is a very bad situation, I totally agree. With wenger gameplay we Didnt afford the luxury of fielding özil, especcially in big games, something Wenger never accepted. Emery has no such illusions. It is no up to özil to decide what hos legacy should be about; if he is the big player he jeeps telning us, he Will not accept wasting his precious gift on the bench. The fact he didn’t move in Jan is not flattering him in that regard.
I wish I could put a thumbs up a thousand times regarding your comment on Jenkinson and Mavropanos st ax rting on Saturday. Unfortunately, I think UE is going to start Lichsteiner and Mustafi instead.
Oh Christ not Lichtsteiner ?
I hope Ozil does play… absolutely madness, the wage he’s on and sometimes not even in the squad (even though he’s fully fit!)
No matter the wages! Maybe it’s time to stop definying him by his wages… he’s also got talent…
Yep I wouldn’t be opposed to seeing Suarez start ahead of Iwobi, just to see what he can do, but I still don’t get why we aren’t using Ozil or Ramsey more. At least they’ll be fresh for the Europa games. Also let’s shake things up at the back and start Jenkinson and Mavraponos tomorrow.
We are using Ramsey a lot. Not the same as the latest seasons where his role was conflicted with Ozil’s and yet they were always playing with no regard to balanace.
This is possibly the best way to use him.
Wrong idea.
Everything good is coming out of the left with Iwobi and Kola.
He plays best inverted on left side
It’s the right which we need something other than Iwobi and where Dennis can provide some nuance/width in Belletin’s absence. We have little threat from right otherwise albeit Laca did a good job against City.
Yes, he can disappear for 90 minutes straight.
Yes he has talent. Everytime his wages…undeniably he has much more talent than iwobi and Ramsey. Maybe right now it is a little different. The Point ist, man Emery should give hin chances and not something like beeing the captain against nonames. A players quality will degrade the more and more he stays on the Bench. Sry for my english
Different type of player.
Iwobi is a player who can take on and beat an opponent or two.
Ramsey is movement base.
Silly to trash Iwobi bc he has been responsible for a lot of goals.
I know he has talent, I’m a big fan of his!! I want to see him play every week! It’s because of that wage why everyone is on his back all the time!! Drives me crazy!!
We really need to create things tomorrow- Ozil’s your man! COYG
It is madness, but honestly, an insane wage accepted by previous manager should not be allowed to dictate current managers team selection. After all, it is the astronomic wage that it is madness, emery is extremely brave and sober when not letting wage pick his team for him
That’s fair enough, but it’s not exactly helping the team is it? Now I’m not saying Ozil is the saviour of AFC, but we all know what he’s capable of.. and the last few games that he’s missed.. we’ve created next to nothing! I was a little baffled as to why UE brought Suarez on (against City)… He’s been with us 5 minutes, we’re chasing the game, all of Ozil’s PL experience.. but then what do I know, I’m no manager!
He has simply not earned a place in the team
Arsenal Gent has it exactly right.
Ramsey and Suarez look like brothers in that picture.
It also looks like emery is pointing and saying ‘look at that spurs cunt’ in that same picture.
https://twitter.com/clivebullen/status/1089652469645365248
Or pointing to their trophy cabinet and saying it is the last season that they have this decade to avoid this graph becoming final.
Will be -1 trophies in the 2020s, according to my son.
The graph does look like it is heading in that direction…
Trophy austerity
It means in the 20’s they will have their last one taken away for cheating.
Damn! I had to scroll back and view the photo with this new perspective
He looks like Rob Holding from that angle.
Ozil’s replacement. What a club…
Why does he have his full name on his shirt? Perhaps likes to talk about himself in the third person?
Or to distance himself from a bitey racist cunt
Great news that AMN and Micki are back as, in regards to are attack and defence, both will make a significant difference to our performance!!! On a side note, as people have already mentioned Ozil, I wonder whether he could be played on the left of midfield (like he often did for Germany), maybe play Iwobi on the left first half then, after the opposition defence has been roughed up a bit, bring on Ozil to work some magic? We really ought to be making some use of ozils talent and I hope we see Ramsey continue to contribute before… Read more »
I really wish you the best Unai. Working under the ‘Greedy Man’, Stan Kroenke, must be hell. I hope you stick it out and I hope Satan Kroenke sells our club to someone who loves it.
UE had millions in PSG… Couldn’t make anything good out of this.
He just battered Barcelona 4-0 in a tactical masterclass before being robbed by the referee on the 2nd leg (scandal of a game).
This is not said enough.
The Suarez dive sticks in the mind
If Ozil does leave, the biggest plus will be that Alex will be online boring fans of another club rather than Gooners..
Unfortunately we have to rely on the team winning to shut the likes of you up.
I believe the phrase blogs uses is “play the ball, not the man”.
Your agenda against UE is boring!
He looked rly bad against city, I still can’t see the point why emery used him in this game instead of Özil. They act like little kids, he should think what’s best for the club and then play his stupid hardballing games with Özil in the summer. I don’t think we should rate Denis for his quality against city, it was obviously to early for him.
Cino21 “He looked rly bad against city, I still can’t see the point why emery used him in this game”
Also Cino21 “I don’t think we should rate Denis for his quality against city”
???
Sry my fault, I think his performance against city was rly poor but Befor anyone will write him off we should wait and see what he gives us after a few games to rate his overall impact.
Clearly no one wrote their name in lights in the 2nd half of the game. I have no problem with Emery throwing Denis in at the deep end!
There aren’t many games left to make an impact. Certainly not the impact we need
I don’t judge his eventual quality on that outing, he may turn out a great player for us. But it was absurd to bring him on against City instead of Ozil. Not just absurd, but defeatist and insulting to Arsenal supporters. Suarez had barely played all season, he had never played with his teammates, barely trained with them. There was no chance whatsoever, as close to zero chance as you can get in the real world, that he would help us win or draw that match. You don’t have to believe that bringing Ozil on would have won us the… Read more »
Understandably rusty last week, which is why Ozil should’ve come on in that moment.
“The first day last week was adaption to us and also with 25 minutes against Manchester City,”
Has Emery admitted here, that he basically gave up on the Man City game when it got to 3-1 and simply gave (a rusty) Suarez minutes for fitness?
Rambo would add energy and goal threat and not sure that Ozil would have made any difference to the result (and Ozil and Ramsey not a great combo), but also not sure I like the defeatism.
It was absolutely defeatist. It was the action of a manager of West Brom or Stoke, not Arsenal.
Rambo and Özil is absolutely a good combo. He used that combo all of september. We won all our games in september. People should look at statistics more.
Why would you loan a player to help you for less than half a season if he’s not already the finished article and up to speed?
If he was the finished article and up to speed he would still be at Barcelona. Also the PL is different to La Liga and the guy needs time to adapt. He did look really lightweight against City but hopefully being so slight will mean he’s really fast and he will be lightning on the wing…when he’s up to speed!
A January loan when we’re up against it to try and qualify for Champions League is a silly time to pick up someone who is not the finished article and will need time to adapt. Especially when you’ve got two ready to play in that position already.
Unless the plan all along is to buy.
Because Emery is looking for a reason to not include Özil for the Rest of the Season. Thats it.
Bingo.
It’s gonna bite us in the ass.
Can anyone please give me examples over the past few games where not playing Ozil has helped our performance (I’m thinking I must have missed something when it comes to midfield creation)
The voice of reason ?
My fear is that the decision not to play Ozil is being made for reasons other than what is happening on the pitch, that it’s not really Emery’s decision to make. I worry that the decision has been made for financial reasons, to force Ozil into accepting a move if he wishes to ever play regularly again. So long as Wenger was there, the ownership’s preference for financial success over football success was at least partially mitigated. (A recent example is Wenger’s resistance to selling Alexis, even if it meant he would leave on a free a few months later.)… Read more »
…and this is why it was so unfair of some of us to scream “Spend some F**ing money” at Wenger all the time. He was up against Stan “Spend your own f**ing money, not mine” at every turn.
One week’s wage of ozil can sponsor 70k people for blog’s patreon
?
Sorry to go off topic. But I had a dream last night that Welbeck was gonna be back before the end of the season. -Is this true? If it were to be true, I’m sure he has his haters but with our financial situation we should definitely offer him a new contract! He was being used more under Unai than ever under Wenger before his injury -and he was performing well. He even seems good for squad morale off of the pitch kinda like a black santi. We need you wele! unless it was just a dream…in that case soz… Read more »
He looked a bit nervous coming on against City but inderstandably it was an intimidating game to be plunged into.
It will take a bit of time to settle him in.
But hopefully he can bring a bit of nuance to wide right.
I can’t help but think we may rue not adding a more specialist winger in Carrasco as well.