Good morning to you. A few bits and bobs to get us through this Saturday’s blog.
First, we had a slightly surprising contract extension story yesterday when the club announced Gabriel Magalhaes had signed a new long-term deal with club. I say slightly surprising because all the recent chatter has been about Bukayo Saka, William Saliba and Gabriel Martinelli, but this is also a situation we should have been on top of.
Gabriel signed from Lille in 2020, we’re heading into 2023, and while I think he signed a five year deal at the time, there’s no harm in tying down a player that the manager and the club think very highly of. There’s been a lot of discussion about him of late, and while there are obviously aspects of his game he can improve on, there aren’t too many left-footed centre-halves of his level knocking around. Let’s also remember he’s still only 24, very young in the life of a central defender, so there’s plenty of time for him to mature and develop.
There have been mistakes, but then there have been mistakes from the hugely impressive William Saliba too, but they don’t get quite the same focus. I understand why that is, but I just think the focus on Gabriel is a little unfair. He’s obviously a player that Mikel Arteta really rates too, and you don’t start 44 consecutive league games under this manager if he has doubts about you. Even that level of consistent availability is an important asset.
Speaking to the official site, Gabriel said:
“It’s my dream and today is the best day of my life. I’m so happy to extend my contract here. Every game the supporters are pushing the team in the stadium. It’s why I’m so happy to stay here. Arsenal is my home.
“In the future, I want to win games for Arsenal, I want to win trophies with Arsenal and stay here for a long time because it’s my home.”
Personally, I think it’s good news and sensible squad management. I’ve seen stories this week that we’re still in the market for a left-footed centre-half, and that also makes sense. While we have players who can play in that position, Arteta clearly likes a left-footer and on that basis we don’t have a ‘natural’ replacement for Gabriel. For now though, the Brazilian is a key part of this team. We’ve complained long enough about the club not dealing well with contracts, so any criticism of this would feel a bit churlish to me.
Just touching on fact Gabriel basically starts every game, and in relation to Arteta’s comments after the PSV game about the top players playing all the time, he was asked about rotation in his pre-Southampton press conference, and said:
We are going to rotate the squad, but I cannot change 11 players in the lineup every three days, it’s crazy and we don’t have enough numbers to change 11 players in every game. We were with 15 or 16 outfield players in the last four or five weeks, so players are going to have to play. If we want robust players, they are going to have to start doing that early in their careers.
I talked about this in some depth with Clive on the Arsecast yesterday, but I found the manager’s view on his fascinating. As fans, we have concerns about the physical demands being placed on players, burn-out, fatigue, injuries caused by ‘overplaying’ and all the rest; whereas Arteta’s outlook is far more about the mentality of the players. I think we have to acknowledge that he is in a position where he knows far more about the physical condition of the players he selects week in, week out, so I think that informs the way he thinks about this issue.
Which isn’t to say I think fans are wrong to worry. We’ve been through plenty when it comes to injuries to favourite players down the years, and there’s an element of us wanting to bubble-wrap them at all times except when it’s considered really important. I still think we need a slightly deeper squad, and I hope the club address that in the January market, but Arteta is trying to create a culture where all his players want to play all the time. No picking and choosing away games or any of that nonsense. I know not everyone will agree with him on this, and that’s fair enough, but I think his entire mindset on this is really interesting.
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A small bit of housekeeping to finish. I know some people have been in touch because they’re not getting the blog via email at the moment. We discovered that it had been added to a fairly major spam list for reasons we don’t understand. We have requested it to be de-listed, but they’re not particularly helpful. Hopefully we’ll have it sorted as soon as possible though.
And finally, we’ll have a Southampton preview podcast for you over on Patreon a bit later this morning. For now, have a good one.
