Fabrizio Romano has claimed that people in the football industry just cannot understand why Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta has benched Gabriel Magalhaes.
The Brazilian has started each of the Gunners’ first three Premier League games on the bench. Nobody really expected that to happen, and Romano has claimed on Kick that his sources are shocked.
Fabrizio Romano says Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta’s Gabriel Magalhaes decision is a big surprise
Arsenal signed Gabriel Magalhaes from Lille back in the summer of 2020.
The Brazilian became an instant hit at the Emirates and went on an unbelievable run of starting over 70 consecutive Premier League games.
The Brazilian became an instant hit at the Emirates and went on an unbelievable run of starting over 70 consecutive Premier League games.
That record came to an end in Arsenal’s opening game of this season, and Gabriel hasn’t started a game since. Arteta has left him on the bench in each of their three games so far, and Romano says his sources are baffled by the decision.
He said: “For Gabriel Magalhaes, honestly, I was speaking to many of my sources today and yesterday, and they all had the same feeling – they don’t understand why Gabriel is not playing.
“This is just probably a tactical decision, but many people in the industry are not understanding why Gabriel is not playing.
“Because internally, from Arsenal, the message is very clear – the player is staying, he’s a crucial player for the project and they want him to continue there. At the moment, there is nothing going on with any club.”
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This is clearly just a tactical decision from Arteta.
Arsenal’s system requires one of their full-backs to invert – Oleksandr Zinchenko is usually the man to do that, and he is arguably the best in the Premier League in that role.
With the Ukrainian not able to start any games yet, Arteta has had to deploy Thomas Partey at right-back to invert, leading to whoever starts on the opposite side – either Takehiro Tomiyasu or Jakub Kiwior – to at times fill in the role of both a full-back and a centre-half.
Gabriel isn’t really suited to that role, which is why other players have been preferred there. With Zinchenko now back, we expect the Brazilian to return as well this weekend.
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