Gabriel Magalhaes played every Arsenal league game last season. However, out of nowhere, the Brazilian didn’t feature in Arsenal’s season opener, which was a 2-1 win over Nottingham Forest, sitting out in what was interpreted as a tactical switch by Arteta, who has been tipped to embrace squad rotation to inject unpredictability to his team.
Over the past few days, there’s been speculation about Gabriel’s future at the Emirates. Some already feel he has lost their favour, which isn’t helped by the fact that there are reports that Saudi Arabian clubs and Real Madrid want him.
Anyway, it is unlikely that he or any defender will leave after Jurrien Timber’s ACL injury. Arsenal can’t afford to lose another defender. Arteta was “indirectly” quizzed about Gabriel’s future in his press conference for the Palace game, to which he admitted, “There are not any plans on doing anything like that.”
With that, I bet Gabriel will be starting against Crystal Palace on Monday night, and in that game, he’ll show what he’s all about.
A Gabriel-Saliba defensive partnership proved to be rock-solid last season. I doubt Arteta will be overlooking it this season; why should he?
The 2023–24 season will be a long one for the Gunners, a long one in the sense that Arteta will no doubt embrace squad rotation, and if players are linked with exits every time they have been rested, how many exit speculations will we deal with?
Darren N
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Don’t believe anything the rubbish media states, Gabriel has no interest in any Saudi club and RM well that’s just pie-in-the-sky media reporting. Arteta was trying out a new formation against Forest, that’s all. Gabriel as far as I can see seems to be very happy with Arsenal, until he puts in a transfer request, you will hear more and more rubbish, and not just about him
Arsenal may revert to a back 4 of Zinchenko(Tomiyasu), Magalhães, Saliba and White. That means Nketiah will drop to bench with Havertz leading the attack while Rice joins Odegaard and Partey in the midfield.
Arsenal’s 3241 system the other day is quite good with the base midifield duo of Partey and Rice dropping into sidebacks to pickup balls. Same way the advanced midfield duo of Odegaard and Havertz drag to side midfield to unleash our wingers.
So in a back 3 system, Magalhães can be a bit shaky and less assured. He is also not as versatile to pick up at several places across the backline and midfield. For this reason Tomiyasu should continue to fill in for Timbre as Zinchenko might not be able to handle the heavier defensive duties of a back 3.