Owen Hargreaves has hailed Arsenal’s new defenders, William Saliba and Gabriel Magalhaes.
They joined the Gunners from the French Ligue 1 where Saliba turned out for Saint Etienne, while Gabriel played for Lille.
Saliba was signed last summer, but he was allowed to remain at the club for the rest of last season, while Gabriel has just been brought in as Mikel Arteta continues rebuilding the team.
Both players are very young with Saliba just turning 19, while Gabriel is 22 and they will have all the time they need to develop in England.
Hargreaves was speaking about Arsenal ahead of the new season and commended them for how tough to beat they have become after earning wins against the likes of Manchester City and Liverpool, before praising their acquisition of both players.
‘I think they’ve started to show a different side already under Arteta. They started to compete more against the bigger teams,’ Hargreaves said on Optus Sport’s The Weekend Preview via Metro.
‘We saw it against Liverpool, we’ve seen it against Manchester City, we’ve seen them win one-off games where you wouldn’t have fancied them before so I think they’re harder to play against.
‘I think the biggest one is defensively. He’s signed a super player in Saliba, even though he’s young and Gabriel is another really good player. He’s competitive, he’s aggressive.
‘But the only problem is that these two guys that he’s signed don’t really know this division. Getting centre-backs to come to this league and adapt takes time.
‘Even for the great ones, we saw it with Nemanja Vidic even.
‘I think he’s trying to sort the defence out and maybe having David Luiz play in the middle of those guys which would work with those young guys.’
Saliba is reportedly in line to start against Fulham this weekend due to the injury that David Luiz has suffered recently, it will be interesting to see how he performs.
