Denis Suarez’ loan move to Arsenal represents a chance to settle unfinished business for the 25-year-old midfielder who was once Manchester City’s bright young things.
It was back in the days of Gary Cook and Brian Marwood that City pulled off a coup when they beat Barcelona to the signing of the 17-year-old who was then at Celta Vigo.
They made an offer of £850,000 that saved Suarez’ club, Celta Vigo, from bankruptcy, and set his car mechanic dad and hairdresser mum up for life. It took him away from Spain but it was too good to turn down.
He scored with his first touch for his new club converting a penalty in a shoot-out against LA Galaxy to decide a pre-season friendly and once Roberto Mancini had finished rollicking Mario Balotelli for trying to score with an elaborate back-heel in the same game, he assured Suarez he would get first team minutes that season.
‘Mancini was very happy with me and told me I was going to make my Premier League debut. Then pre-season ended and it changed,’ Suarez told Sportsmail in an interview two seasons ago.
‘I went back to the second team and I don’t think the coach knew who I was and in the first few games I hardly played. I couldn’t understand it because after being told by Mancini that he was going to use me, I now found myself in the second team and there’s a guy two meters tall playing in my position because he is stronger than me.’
Suarez has always looked back on that period as bad timing. Had he been at City in the Guardiola era things might have been diffierent.
‘I was playing five or ten minutes here and there until after one game against Liverpool, when again I played no more than 10 minutes, I went to talk to City’s scout in Spain David [Fernandez] and to Brian Marwood, and I told them that if the situation didn’t change I didn’t want to stay – it just wasn’t the way things had been sold it to me.’
It was a show of mental strength that he has shown throughout his career to date. Barcelona seemed to be trying to push him out the door last summer but he felt a move to Milan did not suit him and he hung on. Ultimately limited chances from Ernesto Valverde at Barcelona have now left him with no choice.
When he has played this season in the Spanish Cup he has impressed and he does have that quick-thinking, quick-footed style in the second line of strikers that will put Arsenal supporters in mind of a David Silva or a Juan Mata.
But his critics wonder if he does enough off the ball. He also looks better in a 4-2-3-1. Playing wide in a 4-4-2 or 4-3-3 he can lack the pace and power to get beyond teams.
He will however turn up with a determination to bury the ghosts of that past failure when even when second team coach Andy Welsh had been replaced by Attilio Lombardo at City there was still no chance to give him a run of games that would allow him to show his worth.
By the time Manuel Pellegrini arrived at City Suarez was in the last year of his three year contract and City accepted a bid from Barcelona in 2013 rather than lose him for nothing 12 months later.
When he went back to Barcelona in 2013 he played a season in their B-team in Spain’s second tier helping them clock up a record points total and then got Europa League experience at Sevilla and Villarreal before returning to the Camp Nou.
Now he goes back in the opposite direction once more. This time there will be a coach who backs him and gives him a chance to make things work in England.