After damaging his ankle ligaments in June, Arsenal’s Spanish centre back, Pablo Mari is back in light training, Football London reports.
Mari joined the club in the January transfer window as Mikel Arteta looked for a quick fix for his defence.
The Spaniard had been named the club’s manager late last year and he quickly identified the defence as a position that he needed to sort out.
The Gunners signed Mari with hopes that he would make their defence better and he looked decent, but his time in the first team was cut short by injury in June.
The report claims that the Spaniard is now closer to a return to first-team football having started light training, it then says that he will be back in the Arsenal first-team training after the next international break.
Mari looked to have won a place in the first team when he started playing for the club, but he will have to work harder for a first-team place now after the club signed the likes of Gabriel Magalhaes, who has been in fine form.
Rob Holding has also been in fine form, making the competition for a place in Arsenal’s defence fierce.
My instinct is still that once fully match fit, MARI will quickly prove himself our second best CB, behind only Gabriel. Though further down the line, I RETAIN FAITH that Saliba will prove a top buy!
Apparently Mari only cost us £4 million not the reported £14 million. There are reports circulating that Saliba is fed up at Arsenal and wants out in January!
Yikes!!!
From what I’ve read, he wants out ON LOAN . Big difference.
My worry though is: loaning him to his former club, what difference would that make to his development, vis-a-vis his adapting to the Prem.
The saliba situation is a big error. 100m pounds spent on him and pepe!! It is not his fault he isn’t playing but we should never had loaned him back. He lost the momentum.
Imagine after buying Gabriel and we loaned him back! I do not believe he would be playing like this for us next season when he comes back to us. He is continuing his brilliant form in France, and getting off to a good start in England was crucial.
Mari?
Another player we don’t need same as Soares.
Kolasinac, Mustafi, Papa should all leave in January. No contract for Mustafi please. Soares should be sent away on loan.
2 players for every position and then versatile player to make up the squad who can play in a variety of positions.
Papa and Mustafi are bound to go, Kola maybe aswel but Mari and Soares imo should stay.
If we are to compete in the prem and UEL then we need to have basically 2 teams.
Playing the same 14-15 players every 3-4 days will break momentum and form as players need to rest. Also it adds competition for places, makes it easier to replace one player with another without sacrificing to much as the ” back ups” are fit and hopefully in form themselves should we get any injuries, which we often do in important parts of the season
VAL, How good to be able to agree with you this time!
Its good news and am sure Mari will do well under the able guidance of MA. He played quite well before his injury and we will need all fit defenders considering the schedule and tight fixtures. As for Saliba it is a total mystery as to what is happening with him. I am sure he would have played really well had he been in the starting line up at least for the Cup games and the EUL matches. He is a real talent and his partnership with Gabriel would be the most ideal defensive combination for Arsenal in the long run.
I certainly agree on your assessment of Mari. I believe Arteta regretted leaving Saliba out of the EL. Shame
I agree that not registering Saliba was a mistake, a big one? im not so sure if i would go that far.
I can see where MA was coming from in not registering him as we were due to have Mari back alot sooner and he was probably banking on that, which didnt happen.
For me, I believe you should register players that are fit and ready to go now as it is a big risk waiting on players to come back via injury, anything can happen, setbacks often happen when players try to push their fitness or get injured again but with a different injury, both often happen and banking on a player to be back on schedule is a big risk to take, especially when you have a fit player, ready to play not getting registered.
Being left footed Mari will probably mostly be used as an alternative to Gabriel when the occasion warrants and as such could be a valuable asset.
For me Rob Holding is the best with Gabriel he only need games