Pablo Mari is Alright
It didn’t take much for me to decide that Pablo Mari was going to fit into our Arsenal squad. With his calm demeanour, his methodical steps on the pitch, the neat incisive passes, the hulking frame of his body, the Flamengo defender looked exactly like the type to easily acclimate and settle into the rhythm of English football.
Sure, he might get skinned at times by a pacy winger or lose the occasional race contest, but what defender doesn’t struggle with that at times? Maybe he might commit an error one day or something and we’d get punished for it, but what defender couldn’t in the first place?
Saying that Pablo Mari is a risk is to overstate the very nature of risks. Signing Nicolas Pepe was a bigger risk. Signing David Luiz was a bigger risk. Spending a significant sum of money on anybody at all is a risk. But not to Pablo Mari, a 26-year-old hulk who has won trophies and started in a Club World Cup final.
Mari is a like a wildcard that’s about to turn good. We lose nothing from the deal we signed with Flamengo and if we end up losing, it’s barely a scratch on the club’s bottomline.
If Mari possesses the requisite positional intelligence that needs to go for a player of his size, then we might be looking at a first-team potential starter. From the look of things, he appears to be, and for a fee lower than what got us Gabriel Martinelli, then it is a no brainer, we should sign him up. Don’t wait. Right now.
Pablo Mari is going to be alright.