Denis Suarez and Granit Xhaka were both ruled out of Arsenal’s 3-2 defeat to Crystal Palace on Sunday with injury, but the pair watched the game from the stands.
Neither Xhaka nor Suarez has had much luck in the last few months. After joining on loan from Barcelona, Suarez struggled to get into the team ahead of Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Alex Iwobi, before he found his senior chances cut off even further by Unai Emery changing system to use two strikers. After that, the loanee suffered a groin injury.
Meanwhile, Xhaka has had his first real problems with injuries since joining the club two-and-a-half years ago. He missed the first half of February with a groin strain before the same problem kept him out for the opening weeks of April, and now he’s sidelined with a hip problem.
The pair both showed up to support their teammates on Sunday though, posting on their Instagram stories to show their views from the stands:
— Dan Critchlow (@afcDWvid) April 22, 2019
Unfortunately, they probably didn’t enjoy much of what they saw. Arsenal played a terrible first half, and their initial improvement after the break turned out to be nothing more than a setup for them to mess up again.
Let’s hope Xhaka is back available for selection as soon as possible, and if Suarez could provide some real competition for Arsenal’s current forward options, that would be helpful too.