Martin Keown insists that Arsenal was wrong to sign David Luiz and he expects the Brazilian to depart the club at the end of the season.
Luiz has been at Arsenal for the last two seasons and the Gunners surprised some of their fans by offering him a new deal in the summer.
The error-prone Brazilian didn’t have the best of first seasons at the Emirates, but he remains a key part of the team.
There is something that Mikel Arteta sees in him that most fans don’t and that explains why the Spaniard still fields him regularly.
Keown, however, never supported the idea of signing Luiz and has always said he was the wrong player to join the club.
He says recently that he always felt the club was moving in the wrong direction by signing the 33-year-old in the first place.
Keown adds that he expects them to replace him with someone else at the end of this season.
“When he came I said it was the wrong signing,” Keown said via Teamtalk.
“I didn’t wait for six months or a year, I just felt it wasn’t the direction I would have gone in.
“I was looking at it from a defensive point of view, as what I’m looking for as a priority for a top defender in a one-v-one situation.
“David Luiz has surprised me with how well he has done but he needs to be in a back-five. He plays his best football in a five and at the moment we are playing in a four. So there is always that vulnerability.
“For that reason I would like to go in a different direction. We will see what happens in the summer, but they should be looking at strengthening. They have got to be.”
Been our best defender this season so does not bode well for the rest of them then .
It’s pretty obvious him Gabriel are our best pairing and complement each other well .
ONCE AGAIN WE TOTALLY DISAGREE. I think him our worst CB.
Luiz may makes some mistakes
but hes one of the top performing player
he provides the height advantage and experience to the team….constantly shouting and guiding on the pitch
I wonder if the fans are actually watching and analzying the games????
the same goes for Willian….hes toping the league assist and yet fans slammed hes not performing
I do agree we should never have signed him, NEVER
I love the positivity of this site….
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Some people dont like it but Luiz has been our best defender this season, he has been strong and knits the defence together. Yes he is at the end of his career but you cant fault his total contribution to the team.
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Word for word how I feel
…..and he has created many attacking opportunities with his trademark long passes.
I think he has positively contributed to our team this season.
Exactly
Most fans do not watch or analyse the game
the same goes for Wilian
Toping the league with number of assist and he works hard when he plays
but got slammed because he did not cost 100m
John, willian has been dire for 95% of his time at Arsenal, there is no comparison between him and Luiz at all.
Luis and Willian can be compared to beautiful slices of Victoria Sponge which are unfortunately 3 months past their sell by date.Luckily the slice which I have just finished was freshly made by my better half this morning. Delicious.
Is this you publicly admitting to cannibalism?
Luiz has been much better with confidence and experience in the back, I think we should give him a year
I liked him since he was signed by Chelsea the first time. Always wished to see him in red and white and he looks natural in it. Glad he has played for us even though at the end of his career and not at his best.
Yes, I must agree, he has a few faults in his game, but, overall his contribution to the club, both on and off the pitch, has been overwhelmingly positive. I would re-sign him for another year at least. Keown needs to watch more Arsenal games.
certainly Luiz hasn’t been his usual train wreck waiting to happen for a good chunk of this season, with the exception of a few predictable brain farts, but that’s not the reason why he should never have been re-signed…much like the mistake made by the signing of Willian, this was supposed to be a “transitional” year, where a responsible manager uses this time to put the focus on the development of new and more youthful players, instead he chose to read his own headlines and make an unrealistic and short-sighted push for things we really had no business pushing for…now it seems even more likely that he will once again be re-signed and as such prospects, like Saliba and Mavro, will find it increasingly more difficult to make their mark as expectations will invariably rise thus making it even more difficult for any manager to play less experienced players…not to mention, even if you like Luiz, he’s simply not good enough to justify delaying what should be the much more important developmental process, especially if this is really a “rebuild” and not what it seems to be, a “retooling”
I agree with your thoughts regarding the delay in progression that his signing has done for the likes of Saliba, Mavs and Gabriel to name just three.
However, I believe he was signed for his experience as the likes of the three mentioned (plus Mari, Chambers and Holding recovering from injuries) would have seen MA relying completely on inexperienced CB’s.
As it has turned out, apart from his usual and expected flopars, a shrewd short term buy… but surely only that?
Obviously I comprehend the thought-process behind the move, but considering Luiz patchy past was it really worth the potential risks…as we witnessed early on Luiz cost us on numerous occasions, which negates any potential benefit of just such a decision…I would have understood this course of action more if the defender in question was someone who had a long history of providing stability within the defender ranks and who was far less prone to making bone-heading mistakes…since this wasn’t the case, I would have much rather allowed our younger players to have been given those significant minutes so that the learning curve could have started sooner…as for the injury situation, I think that’s a moot point, as Mustafi and Sokratis were still rostered players who were making significant wages yet doing practically nothing…not to mention, Saliba was at the club until January getting absolutely no playing time, which was another situation that was totally mishandled
I will play mari any time ahead of luiz and give the likes of holding, gabriel and saliba the chance to florish ..
Luiz has done wwell no doubt but we need rock solid defence and with luiz there is always a but to his play..
Arteta needs to have more confidence in the young lads and trust them to deliver…
Gentlemen could I ask you all to consider the fact that not one of the centre backs in our first team player pool is a current international.What does that tell you about the quality of these players?
We had two world cup center backs Mustaffi and Mertadonkey, what does that tell you. 🤣
I totally agree with you
David Luiz for captain.
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