Arsenal have up to 29 players on loan at the moment and Marquinhos has finally made his Norwich City debut after joining the club at transfer deadline last month.

It took a while, but Marquinhos finally made his Norwich City debut and it was well worth the wait.

The young Gunners, signed for £3m from Sao Paulo last summer, became the latest member of this season’s long loan army by joining the Championship side on the final day of the January transfer window in a move intended to help his development, which had stalled somewhat.

However, there were some concerns starting to surface among the Arsenal faithful regarding the lack of playing time Marquinhos was getting after moving to Carrow Road, as he missed out on Burnley, Bristol City, Wigan Athletic and Birmingham City. .

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The reality of the situation is that the Brazilian picked up an injury early on in his loan spell, which kept him out of action for over a week and he has been relieved by Norwich manager David Wagner since resuming full training.

Better late than never, Marquinhos made his debut against Cardiff City on Saturday afternoon – 25 days after his move to Norfolk – and made an immediate impact when he collected Gabriel Sara’s assist to open the scoring before scoring in a impressive four-minute period at the end of the first half.

Still looking for fitness and agility for the game, the teenager was substituted just before the 15th minute but, in fact, he has done more than his share to ensure the Canaries remain in the hunt for a play-off place and that earned him praise from Wagner and beyond a word of warning.

“It was a great start for him – a goal on his debut and an assist too,” said Wagner. “He has adapted very well here but had to wait for his chance. He showed his quality today but we have to remember that he has just turned 19 and there is still a lot of work to do.”

A goal and an assist on his debut are a good reminder of what Marquinhos did on his competitive debut at Arsenal earlier in the season, as he made the same contribution in the 2-1 Europa League group stage win over FC Zurich .

Despite barely having featured in the Premier League after that impressive display in September, coupled with the fact that playing time would have been even harder to come by following the arrival of Leandro Trossard, not to mention Gabriel Jesus returning to full fitness, a loan move was the best decision for both parties.

Now at Norwich, it will be interesting to see how Marquinhos fares towards the end of the season, as there’s a chance he could end up saving millions of pounds for his parent club in the summer transfer window in search of a back-option for Bukayo Saka.