#360view: Suarez key to Barcelona’s evolution

Andy West 07:24 22/02/2016
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  • Influential: Suarez.

    How different football history could have been.

    If Arsenal’s audacious attempt to prise Luis Suarez from Liverpool in 2013 had been successful, it wouldn’t only have been a major boost to the London club’s quest for silverware – it would have also seriously dented Barcelona’s.

    Heading into Tuesday’s Champions League meeting, Suarez couldn’t be flying higher after helping maintain Barca’s cushion at the top of La Liga with another goal in Saturday’s victory at Las Palmas.

    In all competitions, Suarez has now netted a remarkable 41 goals this season, and it’s fair to say his all-round contribution has eclipsed even the most ambitious expectations when he was controversially signed in the summer of 2014.

    Arsene Wenger is right, as he did on Monday, to highlight Suarez’s positive impact upon team spirit, and his flourishing relationships with Lionel Messi and Neymar have been a key generator of the feel good factor which has propelled Barcelona’s recent success.

    But more important than his personality, Suarez’s tactical contribution to Barca has been immense. It’s important to remember that he joined the club at a time when they were struggling, having just endured their first trophy-less season in six years after a dull campaign under Tata Martino. Back then, the Catalan giants were at a crossroads.

    Tiki-taka was no longer effective, with opposing defences getting to grips with Messi’s deep-lying false nine position and the team’s spiritual leader, Xavi, suffering a gradual deterioration as he headed into his mid-30s.

    The ‘old’ approach, it was clear, could no longer deliver the flood of trophies to which Barca fans had become casually accustomed, and change was needed. The quandary was how that change should be delivered, with the introduction of Neymar a year earlier doing little to rejuvenate an attack which was looking tired and predictable – the Brazilian was clearly subordinate to Messi in his first season in Spain, and the two players rarely combined together.

    The opening months of the 2014- 15 season, which Suarez watched from the sidelines while serving his post-World Cup ban, delivered more questions than answers as new manager Luis Enrique grappled indecisively with the question of how to fashion an effectively functioning team unit.

    Then Suarez entered the fray, and gradually everything changed.

    At first, Enrique fielded him on the right wing with Messi maintaining his old central position, but Messi’s ongoing struggles eventually led to a new plan as the Argentine moved to the right and Suarez was switched to his more accustomed central position. He, and they, have never looked back since, with the new formula allowing Barca’s front three to truly shine by extracting the most out of their supreme individual talents in a manner which, crucially, also serves their collective play.

    Suarez is absolutely fundamental to that success, with his insatiable work ethic and clever movement off the ball keeping opposition defenders occupied and creating space for Messi and Neymar to exploit when they drift inside.

    He has also, of course, added a flood of goals, and is poised to become the first player since fellow Uruguayan Diego Forlan in 2009 to overcome Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo as La Liga’s top scorer. And the bad news for Arsenal is that he looks hungry enough to not be anywhere near finished yet.

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