I wonder how many fans that were calling for David Luiz to not be given a new contract after his absolutely dire performance against Man City on our first game back after the restart.
He actually started on the bench, with Arteta saying he wanted to “protect him” as his contract situation was still an issue, but the Boss had to use Luix when Mari went off with a season-ending injury. Luix was only on the pitch for 25 minutes, but in that time he managed to gift Man City a goal, and then get himself sent off, leaving the Gunners to play most of the second half with ten men.
Despite his abject apology, many people on here were in no mood to forgive the Brazilian, and the abuse was even worse when he was actually given a new contract anyway.
Since he was re-signed though, Luiz has upped his game, and was one of the stars in yesterdays historic win over Arteta’s old side, and Arteta had nothing but praise for him after the game for turning things around. “This is part of football, you can go down but I didn’t have any doubts about David’s reaction,” the Boss said on Arsenal.com.
“He held his hands up after that [City] game and he didn’t have to do that because we all make mistakes. The way he has been training and helping others has been phenomenal and I am delighted that people can now see this side of him as well and praise him because he deserves it.
“He has won everything in different countries so he brings that [experience] with him. Not only that but I want him to perform on the pitch and he is doing that again in a really good way and I’m really happy for him today.
“David doesn’t need a lot of management,”
“What he needs is that we trust him and we don’t doubt what he can do.
“The best way to do that is to make him play. He can say that throughout his career he has had some difficult moments and some incredible moments, but big athletes go through those moments and I’m happy that he’s at the level he’s playing now.”
Well, Arteta has been proved right, and Luiz has proved he is still full of class despite the abuse he often gets from fans. Like Xhaka, should we all now forget our problems with the ex-Chelsea star and trust him and support him all the way through next season?
Problem is when not good enough players have a decent spell and at lest one blinding game, as with yesterday, so many fans, esp young fans want to immediately rewrite history. For several years Xhaka has been one paced, immobile and just not good enough. Suddenly he is flavour of the month.
Well I am more slow to change my mind than some on here. I DO NOT REMOTELY THINK HIM GOOD ENOUGH TO BE IN A TOP LEVEL TEAM . SAME GOES FOR LUIZ AND MUSTAFI, BOTH OF WHOM HAD STORMERS YESTRDAY. But that does not overide the longer term proving by all three that they are not good enough. In my view older players do not suddenly improve permanently; though they may well benefit from a new system and the team being more motivated and defensively tighter. To my mind that is all that has happened and a miraculous transformation in three sows players ears into top players has NOT happened. REALISM, AS EVER!
I think Luiz could be a good mentor and he could be key for guiding our young players. Footballers do decline a little bit with age, so has David but you can’t deny that he was always best suited in a back three during his entire career due to his attributes. Same with Xhaka. Arteta has seen how playing to Xhaka’s strengths can help the team in the current state. Sir, at the moment we have very few players who can play in the current system, so players like Xhaka, Luiz, Mustafi are crucial to the late run in and end of our season. That said we definitely need improvement as I think they can’t consistently put up these kinds of performances day in, day out in a normal season.
I readily admit to calling for his head out of utter frustration. Several others could be named too. I have been so impressed with Arteta from day one. He has improved everyone and in the absence of stellar signings due to financial constraints, we shall all have to believe that those who start next season can carry on the good work that has been instilled in them so far.
For Luiz to speak straight after that calamitous game to the media and then come back stronger makes Arteta’s faith in him worth noting. Jon refers to Xhaka and Mustafi who have gained in confidence which can only help their mentality too. They may not be the best but at least Arteta has turned them into coach able players who have shown their worth recently