Suarez – A Bullet Dodged For Arsenal

By Daniel Cowan
In Arsenal
Jun 25th, 2014
16 Comments

After a long and arduous drive across the country I arrived home yesterday hoping to catch some of the Italy vs Uruguay game. Having unpacked the car I sunk into my sofa and switched on the TV to see Luis Suarez take a bite out of Chiellini’s shoulder. I sat with my jaw agape for what felt like an inordinate but appropriate length of time in utter shock.

Was this because I couldn’t believe what Suarez had done or because I was surprised that I naively expected better of Suarez? I still haven’t worked it out.

Watching the replays and the post match commentary complete with clips of previous bites by Suarez got me thinking that Arsenal dodged a bullet last season when they failed to wrench him from the cloying and grasp of the obstinate John W. Henry.

I’m certain that many Liverpool fans or indeed any non-Arsenal supporters who have found their way to this post will be proclaiming I’m just bitter and will have skipped the rest of this post to jump face first into the comments to tell me how bitter I am.

I should state that I am not bitter. Last summer I was desperate for Arsenal to strike a deal for Suarez because we needed a World Class striker and he is such a player. I was even willing to look beyond his past indiscretions and chant his name along with the rest of the Gunners squad. It was mooted that he had turned a corner, mentality wise, and his performances for Liverpool last season seemed to be evidence of that.

For all intents and purposes he was a model professional last season. Quiet off the pitch but obstreperous in his effectiveness and impact on the pitch. It would be incongruous to suggest he single-handedly led Liverpool’s title challenge but even the most blinkered Liverpool fan would agree their fortunes would have been much less so without his contribution and possibly would have seen Arsenal as easy double winners had we managed to snare him.

He is very much the player Arsenal needed, and still need, but his playing ability seems to be irremovable from his inner lunatic. If you take the lunatic out of him is he still the same player? His performance last season suggested so but his ridiculous penchant for biting opponents reared its ugly head at the World Cup as if to say “fooled you f*ckers, you’re never getting rid of me”.

I think Arsenal dodged a bullet when they failed to purchase him last summer, admittedly it was not something they wanted to do, in fact they wanted that bullet to pass straight through them, ricochet off a nearby lamppost and embed itself deep into their shoulder blade. Sadly, I believe had they taken that bullet it would have been a gut shot.

Suarez’s seeming inability to remove his psychotic urges from his undoubted playing ability makes him a huge risk for any club. Had Arsenal bought him I think it is fair to suggest they would have come much closer to or probably even won the league last season and this summer would be facing a huge conundrum.

Arsenal could not afford to have a player so erratic on their books and after a third incident of biting would probably look to sell – and mental or not, Suarez will always have affluent admirers – but would find themselves in the impossible position of appeasing the fans who won’t want to see their top striker leave the club and finding a suitable replacement to help defend the title. How can you sell a striker at the peak of his powers who has just won you some trophies after just one year? And how can you justify keeping a player that is always at risk of being banned for 25-50% of a season because he can’t stop biting people like a three year old at Nursery School hyped up on sugar and bad discipline?

There’s something paradoxical about dodging the bullet because in the theory of causality and the butterfly effect suggests that by moving to Arsenal last summer the course of Suarez’s destiny would have changed and he may not have bitten Chiellini yesterday. However, by biting an opponent for the third time in his career (that we know of) he proves that the propensity is always there and thus the threat of a subsequent ban is always there.

And in the changed destiny Suarez may have bitten a player whilst wearing an Arsenal shirt which would have been immeasurably worse as it is still unclear as to whether or not his actions yesterday will affect his ability to play domestic football.

Extreme talent usually goes hand in hand with extreme personalities and every genius will have his flaws but I think Suarez’s would be a burden too great for a club like Arsenal. A player like Balotelli will always court controversy with his actions, attitude and off-field antics but at least he doesn’t bite people.

Liverpool are a club of great stature with fantastic history and I believe they only put up with Suarez because he is such a valuable asset but I’m quite confident that they would never have bought him if what has gone on since during his Liverpool career had happened whilst he was in the Netherlands.

I could easily see Liverpool selling him the summer and talent aside, I think Arsenal are lucky that bridge was burnt a long time ago.

Liverpool may well look to keep him at the club this summer, as is their prerogative, and I wouldn’t blame them if they did because he is such a talent but there comes a time when a players actions can no longer be counter-balanced with their talent and youthfulness, naivety or mother-culture can be used as excuses.

Three bites, a reputation for diving (warranted or not) and a racism scandal is more than any one player is worth in my opinion.

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About "" - 509 Posts

I am a South London born Gooner now living in Leigh-On-Sea, Essex. I'm a husband, daddy, podcaster, trainer enthusiast and aspiring author. My work is my passion and for that I will always be grateful. Here is where I write my thoughts and views on Arsenal Football Club, the greatest team the world has ever seen.

16 Responses to “Suarez – A Bullet Dodged For Arsenal”

  1. Simon says:

    Eh! Seriously odd nonsense. If we had Suarez we would have won the league. What a problem that would have been! Not. You are strange.

    • Daniel Cowan says:

      Thanks for your comment but your computer seems to be broken as you only read half of the article. The bit your computer missed, as I don’t think you would deliberately skim over important points to leave a comment that suggests you didn’t bother reading it all before commenting, said that we probably would have won us the league but his behaviour would be such an issue for a club like Arsenal (maybe not for you or me but we don’t run the club) that they would be facing a conundrum of keep & accept he is a danger to our ambitions as he’s always only one Suarez-ism away from a 10 game ban or sell & risk the wrath of the fans. Strange that your computer missed that. I would get that checked.

  2. Tom Pepper says:

    Dodged a bullet my ass,you wanted too buy him on the cheap because he sank his teeth into ivanovic.And because he probably would have won you the Premier League…When he was called a racist you wanted him,your fans have zero memories.Arsenal fans would BITE my hands off if it meant you got Suarez for £40.000.001 !!!

    • Daniel Cowan says:

      And here comes the kind of Liverpool fan that makes the rest look bad.

    • deejay1952 says:

      With that logic he might be worth the quid we offered (not the 40 million though). even less if he brings his teeth with him. he should be ok by the time he’s 80 and his teeth have fallen out. one can only hope his transfer value has gone down considerably. one in the eye for pools septic owner..

  3. Hi Daniel,
    I agree with you ,no matter how talented a player is, there is no excuse for this kind of behaviour, particularly on the pitch!

    However, Arsenal might be signing another very talented player this summer,who also is known for his irrational behavious, albeit in a different way & is highly unpredictable too, MARIO BALOTTELLI, ex-Man City ,now Milan player, as well as taking part for Italy in the World cup.

    Do you think he would be a reliable signing for the Gunners & would Arsene Wenger be able tame his sometimes wild behaviour & antics?

    NICK KREIENBRING.

    • Daniel Cowan says:

      I think he can be tamed. He isn’t a constant risk like Suarez as he isn’t a biter. He isn’t going to be embroiled in any racism scandals either. He is a card but I think some of that is down to youthfulness and some down to confrontational managers who bash heads with him all the time. I think Wenger could get the best out of him. He’s done it before with similarly misguided and hotheaded young players.

  4. Family Enclosure Man says:

    The biggest problem with Suarez is his seeming inability to acknowledge that he has ever been in the wrong. His petulant and public refusal to shake Evra’s hand after his ban for racist abuse; his ridiculous claims that his two-goal haul against England somehow ‘answered’ his critics in the UK (it dod nothing of this sort, since the criticism he has faced here has only ever concerned his behaviour, not his undoubted footballing ability); his continuing insistence that the press in the UK disrespect him, despite the fact that they names him the Football Writers’ Player of the Year for the 2014; and now his fatuous claim in the Uruguayan press that ‘There are things that happen on the pitch and you should not make such a big deal out of them. It was just the two of us inside the area and he bumped into me with his shoulder.’ Give me a break! He sees himself only as a long-suffering victim and takes no responsibility for his own crazy decisions and actions. YEs, he’s a great player, but I for one agree with this blogger: thank God we didn’t sign him last summer.

    And while we’re on the subject, I feel much the same about Balotelli (who doesn’t even have the merit of being a great footballer). Please God we don’t sign him. A player like Bony would be far better: good as gold in terms of his behaviour, works hard, strong as an Ox, a calm finisher with head, left or right foot.

    • Daniel Cowan says:

      Thanks for your comment. You speak a lot of sense. Not because you agreed with me (we actually disagree on Balotelli) but because you read the whole thing and commented on the point that was made. Appreciated.

  5. Simon says:

    Read it again. Still nonsense from beginning to end. I know what let’s just losers and talk about how lucky we are we don’t have one of the best strikers in the world… Oh we’re doing that already. Nutty.

    • Daniel Cowan says:

      Right, so you read the part where I said I wanted him? You read the part where I said he was and is the player we need? You read the part where I said he would be perfect if he wasn’t psychotic and biting people? What’s nutty is your inability to engage in an adult debate without immediately resorting to insults and sarcasm. Nicely done, Simon. Nicely done.

  6. Simon says:

    Who cares? Utterly incoherent. He does bite. We would win. Everything else is navel gazing. How we have dodged a bullet I can’t fathom. Maybe you just like the phrase but it’s lazy journalism at best. To dodge a bullet is to avoid death. Seriously.

    • Daniel Cowan says:

      You’re being a bit literal with the phrase and it seems you actually are taking more umbrage with the title than the content which tells me you read too many tabloid websites. You’re also accusing me of lazy journalism. I’m not a journalist.

      I don’t need your approval nor am I looking for you to agree with me. What I do hope from all of my commenters is not to have my writing called nonsense purely on the basis they disagree.

      I don’t think his lunacy is worth the trouble. I did 12 months ago because I thought it was mostly out of his system. I now believe it will always be there, just under the surface and liable to pop at any point, like an extremely large boil. If you think that is worth it then that’s cool mate, you’re entitled to think that way but I’m not going to call you strange or nonsensical for it.

  7. Stumpy says:

    Great balanced post.

    I rarely ever post on any Arsenal related blogs although I read loads of them. The only incidents of biting an opponent on the football pitch I can recall have been perpetrated by the same person. When Mike Tyson bit a chunk out of Evander Holyfield’s ear most right minded people thought ‘he’s got serious mental problems’ and washed their hands of him. There’s only so much you can do to help somebody. They have to want to change. The fact that he (Suarez) shows no understanding of the consequences of his actions for his team tell you everything about what kind of person he is, a Sociopath.

    We say that we want a game with no cheating, no dramatics, no career ending tackles, however when we see someone blatantly taking the proverbial people still stand up to defend him, just because he’s a great footballer. Just to be clear, I don’t want Suarez or Balotelli anywhere near Arsenal FC unless they’re playing for the opposition and Suarez has to wear a muzzle.

  8. Robbie_Rotten says:

    I couldn’t understand our bidding for him last year. The only explanation I can think of is that the board decided they wanted the fans off their back and went for it. He is an out and out reptile, and I’d rather wait a few more years for a title than rely on this nutter. Liverpool said the club was bigger than Luis Suarez after he bit Ivanovic, then went on to show that they aren’t, including welshing on one of the clauses in his contract, as they knew they would barely be challenging for a place in the UEFA cup without him. Liverpool deserve Suarez, and good luck to them both. I’m sure they could rig up some kind of muzzle for him.

  9. mwenda says:

    suarez would have been arsenals bullet..our guns are firing blanks

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