Arsenal own two of only three players in Europe’s top five leagues (who have played 900+ minutes of professional action) without being dribbled past.
Both William Saliba, who is currently enjoying a loan spell with Nice in Ligue 1, and David Luiz are amongst the three players who can boast that no player has dribbled past them during the current campaign.
Barcelona’s Ronald Araujo is the only player not owned by Arsenal who can boast the same, as revealed by Squawka.
Three outfield players in Europe's top five divisions have played 900+ league minutes this season without being successfully dribbled past by an opponent…
Two of them are owned by Arsenal. 🙃— Squawka Football (@Squawka) March 23, 2021
Should Saliba and Luiz be paired together for Arsenal next season?
Patrick
David Luiz is a version of Janet Jackson’s ” Got till it’s gone “. Most Arsenal fans doesn’t know what we got till he’s gone. I wish he gets another year at the least. Pls my opinion, so respect it.
Another piece of independent data in support of the case that our woeful form this season is not entirely the fault of the players. Instead of wasting money again on new players – creating more deadwood – we need to seriously consider if it makes more sense to change the present system instead, including the coach.
In the case of Luiz, it would seem rather difficult to dribble around someone who both plays so deep and backs away whenever someone approaches him with the ball at their feet…try and find a stat that shows how many uncontested shots Luiz gives up in and around the box because he’s unwilling to stick his foot in due to his piss-poor record for giving up cheap fouls and/or penalty shots…all I know is that more often than not he fails the “eye test” and while he might provide some valuable insight to some of his less experienced teammates, I would much rather him to do so from the bench or on the training ground so that we can start to develop our younger players/prospects
I like Luiz…I know he’s made some terrible mistakes and has that tendency sometimes.but he’s also a very experienced player who’s won everything at club level, produces top quality performances regularly, and is perfect to have around when you have lots of youngsters in your squad.
I changed my mind about him after his horrible performance last season. To face the cameras and apologise said a lot about him as a man. The same with Xhaka who came back from the brink. Whilst talent is vital, strength of character goes a long way
I certainly don’t know these two individuals personally so I would hesitate to address their respective characters, but if you’re going to apply the “strength of character” tag on someone simply because they apologized after some form of shocking action/behaviour, football or otherwise, I can’t see how you would extend that honour to Xhaka, as he did the exact opposite…in fact, he had the nerve to blame a few rogue loser “fans”, who attacked him and his family on social media, which of course I find totally abhorrent, for his unacceptable armband throwing /flip off display, without ever actually offering an ounce of contrition…that’s certainly not the only time that he’s gone radio silent following one of his many missteps since arriving in North London
as for Luiz, it appears that he’s a positive influence for some of the younger players, so I’ll focus my critique his on-field contributions…with that said, he needs to go, not because he’s a garbage player, but because we need to start the development process asap or we’re going to end up relying on the Mustafi’s of the world going forward…the pressure on Arteta, or whomever, will only increase moving forward, this will invariably make it more difficult for any manager to start experimenting with inexperienced and/or more youthful players, so the process should have started YESTERDAY