Arsenal overcame Cardiff City on Tuesday night, stumbling to a 2-1 win over the Welsh side.
Questions quickly turned to transfers in the press conference post-match, with the transfer deadline looming. Today reports suggested that a deal for Denis Suarez is done, and Emery’s comments appeared to all but confirm that.
Many fans have wondered where Suarez will play, will he feature centrally or on the flanks and it seems that we now have an answer.
‘We need wingers. (Denis) Suarez, who I know, his qualities is this.’ said Emery. And that all but confirms that Unai views Suarez as a winger predominantly. We’ve seen the likes of Alex Iwobi, Mesut Ozil and Aaron Ramsey feature in a wide berth this season under Emery and Suarez perhaps offers more natural width in that wide playmaker role than any of those other three options. There’s also big question marks over the long term future of Ozil and Ramsey is of course leaving at the end of the season.
It will be noted that Emery used the term ‘wingers’ and David Ornstein from the BBC confirmed earlier today that the Gunners were still in the hunt for a winger after securing a deal for Suarez.
The wingers most widely linked are Yannick Carrasco and Ivan Perisic. What makes these options interesting are that Inter Milan are believed to be in the hunt for Carrasco, and so, if Arsenal allow Inter to sign Carrasco, it could pave the way for Perisic to join the Gunners. The sticking point currently appears to be that Arsenal want a loan with no obligation to buy and Inter would like to sell permanently right now – which Arsenal do not have the budget for.