Arsene Wenger says he trusts Gabriel completely and that the centre-back will get more game time in the second half of the season.
The Brazilian, who scored his first Arsenal goal in Monday’s 2-0 win over Bournemouth, has dovetailed well with Per Mertesacker and Laurent Koscielny since moving from Villarreal 11 months ago and is hoping for first team action in 2016.
Aside from the red card at Chelsea, received for a coming together with Diego Costa and later rescinded, Gabriel has integrated into Premier League life with gusto, impressing with a series of energetic performances.
“He is ready,” Wenger told his pre-Newcastle press conference. “I played him in a few games since the start of the season.
“I played him in a few games since the start of the season. I play him in training with Koscielny, with Mertesacker, we have three central defenders [and] that will be needed, but how I rotate them I haven’t decided yet.
“I trust him completely. He wants to play more, of course. I think as well that he is happy here and I’m sure before the end of the season he will play more games.”
So far this season Laurent Koscielny and Per Mertesacker have made 22 appearances each, while Gabriel has featured 11 times (including 10 starts); not a bad return from a player, who at 25, is still learning his trade.
Wenger also paid further tribute to Petr Cech, just days after the football fraternity hailed the Czech keeper for breaking the Premier League clean sheet record.
“I said many times that it is maybe the most underrated position in football and goalkeepers are more important than everybody thinks,” continued the boss.
“When you look at his record it is absolutely fantastic, because considering the number of games he played and the number of games he had a clean sheet, that speaks for itself.
“On top of that I must say I am surprised how quickly he integrated into our team. It looks like he has always played here for us… how quickly he became comfortable inside and important inside the team, is amazing.”
In an interview with The Mirror, Cech revealed that he does his best to communicate with his defence in their native language.
“I speak to the full-backs in Spanish, to Koscielny in French and to Per in English because for him it is the same as me.
“He organises people in English. Sometimes foreign players wouldn’t know what you say. That’s when you realise it’s easier to say it in their language than hoping they will understand. It can happen.”
We’ll assume Petr has also picked up a few bits of Portuguese to help out Gabriel.
All the fit players will be needed here on in so it’s good they are sharp and hit the ground running. It’s looking good and if we’re still top in a month I can’t see us being stopped.
“I said many times that it is maybe the most underrated position in football and goalkeepers are more important than everybody thinks,” continued the boss.
When you look at how DeGea has probably saved Man U from being about level in the league with Chelsea, as well as the amount of points Cech has already saved us, it makes it even more mystifying how the boss stuck with the Almunia and Fabianski experiments for so long.
Perhaps hampered by our financial constraint then? Probably had to juggle and budget the transfer fund for other positions deemed more pressing at that time.
I was dumbfounded by the boss’ comments there as well. If a goalkeeper is the most important then why did we go so long with such crappy keepers? It’s actually the cheapest position to purchase a player as well. Neuer went for 19 million pounds, De Gea for 18 million…Buffon the most with 33 million, but you have to say all were well worth it.
Cech for 11 million is a great bargain too!
Maybe there wasn’t an affordable option.
The thing about the Boss is that he trusts his players.. to a fault. It’s not surprising that most players that he brought into the first team look at him as a father figure. I know that he loves the Arsenal but sometimes I wonder if he ought to be more ruthless.
Almunia was amazing on his day… it was just the other 99% of the time
I don’t think it is really that mystifying. Look at what Wenger said a couple of weeks ago on this exact topic: “There is no history of teams winning things without having a great goalkeeper.” The simplest way to explain the situation is that he did not believe the team – as a whole – had enough quality to “win things” during the austere years (except perhaps by sheer luck). That shouldn’t be surprising when you consider he was relying on the likes of Denílson, Eboué, Bendtner, Gervinho and André Santos. Once you accept that, it becomes much easier to… Read more »
That’s a massive point. Given that goalkeepers are never too expensive, this oversight from the Boss was baffling. But, I think he tried – alumina, fabianski, Szchesny, Ospina. There was talk of Dudek, Cesar, etc. Maybe he tried getting Cech’s quality keeper but never managed to. DeGea started as an experiment too but he flourished remarkably in his third season whereas none of the above did.
Right now, the league has four best goalkeepers in the world – Degea, Courtouis, Cech and Hart. Butland is developing well so maybe an idea to fetch him as a Cech’s successor.
As he should.
The bench makes him hungrier IMO and thus cannot wait to prove himself when afforded his chance like getting on the end of every Mesut corner ala Monday night. Good signing.
Lovely!He and our Bosscielny would form a rock solid partnership at the back!Especially as BFG is ageing a bit old soon,I hope it is the perfect time to start replacing him slowly!
I see a top defender that’s ready to come out of Gabriel
That little passage about him communicating in French with Kos, in Spanish with Monreal etc is another example of the intelligence level of Cech.
He’s added so much to the team, much more than just his immense skills as a keeper.
Best transfer we’ve brought in for many many years.
Just try to imagine Rooney speaking to his international teammates in their different languages…
He struggles to communicate in English….
Gabriel did very well. I think next rotation will see him paired with Kosh. Per needs rest, too.
It’s either Bournemouth sucks at defending corners, or Gabriel is one of the players to better understand Ozil’s intention in each set piece delivery. But I say play Gabriel more often as he’s the one getting on to meet each Ozil’s masterpiece!
Bournemouth have the worst defence against corners(or set pieces,can’t remember what the commentator said),but that takes nothing away from the quality of the deliveries and gabriels willingness to attack the ball like a man possessed.
His comments about goalkeepers and that they are more important than people think is somewhat baffling as he was quite happy to have second class goalkeepers for years.
I don’t know of one fan who thought our goalkeepers since Lehman were of the highest quality so they were certainly thinking !
Gabriel is among the best defenders in the EPL
Czech is such a class act.
That’s Cech, I know, I know…
Funny it’s so much easier to like him now he’s not wearing that icky blue stuff… makes you wonder how we’d feel about other repulsive Chelsea twats if they wore red and white instead. For instance John Terry, would the mere sight of his face still make us contort in uncontrollable disgust and throw up like we’d just swallowed a fistful of turds?
Yes, yes it would.
Petr Cech might have been the ONE guy I didn’t feel absolute dislike towards, in the Chelsea team these last few years. The ONE GUY. Probably because he’s generally composed and gentlemanly, and that is hard to associate with those blue bums.
drogba. aside from him, all of the rest of them looked like they should have been wearing shit on their shirts.
I think Wenger will rest Per, and play Gabriel and Koscielny together against Newcastle. Would be the sensible thing to do.
Also, as blogs pointed out in the arsecast, Ozil’s fitness is something that is incredible, as is BFGs. I think it might be something to do with them playing in Germany. Coquelin pointed out that his loan spell in Freiburg made him a lot stronger and fitter than he had ever felt before. Would be interesting to see how their youth training development differs from England.
Ozil should play every game because he is lazy
Language, important as ever. I bet he thrives in speaking them.
Does Cech speak Arabic? I’m asking for an Egyptian friend.
His magic hat has one of those universal translators built into it.
Gabriel should get a run between now and February when we play Barca. I would fancy our chances with him and Kos against Messi n Co.
Why does AW keep saying ” gk’s are an underrated position ”
They are not and haven’t been for some time now. Hence our dismay with persistence in using Almunia, Szcz and Ospina. We could have bought Lloris years ago (or Frey!!)
But I’m delighted we finally have Cech.
Tbf Ospina is on par with Lloris. Everybody is forgetting his brilliant displays for Colombia and last season for Arsenal after the nightmare game against Olympiacos
Stop that…lloris has consistently been in the top 5 goal keepers in the league since he joined those little shits. Only reason I hate him now is because he plays for them. Ospina is not on his level.
We all know Frey is just a myth.
Sometimes, it pays to be multilingual
If bellerin cements himself as one of the top RBs in Europe in coming years, no doubt Petr Cech will have played a major part in that!
On that note, we must learn from Chelsea’s mistake of letting him go and keep him beyond his playing days in some sort of coaching capacity. No doubt with his experience and intelligence in the staff we can only improve!
Personally, I’m hoping we reach such heights of success in the next three to four years with Cech being among the most important contributors that it cements his legacy as an Arsenal legend to the extent that any other clubs in London Cech might have dirtied his hands with won’t even want to claim him as their own anymore. I remember when Sol Campbell joined us from some other North London club, and I seem to remember that other club’s fans having their hearts broken to the extent that they couldn’t even address him by name, let alone recall fondly… Read more »
I give Petr Cech immense credit for a lot of things, but Hector had a brilliant season last year with him nowhere in sight.
Gabriel certainly has the potential to be a great, long term solution at CD for Arsenal. He has adapted very well and very quickly to the Premier League and has shown well in his brief cameos, but given a chance for a consistent run of matches I feel he can become dominant. Of course it’s tough to replace either starting CD permanently as both are playing well and have a great partnership, but would be nice to see a bit of rotation as Wenger did this last match to keep Gabriel sharp.
That is special. Speaking the different languages not only helps the players with poorer English, it instantly informs the player of who he is speaking to, without wasting time saying their name etc. Valuable milliseconds saved can make the difference.. Huge asset.
Gabriel loves a bit of physicality. A side with Koscielny, Gabriel and Coquelin flying in to tackles throughout the center of the pitch would be terrifying for any striker, particularly one that’s out of form and looking for confidence.
It’s the type of physicality and tenacity this club is often denounced for not having. Hopefully Monsieur Wenger has another January signing or two like Gabriel in the works.
I love Wenger and normally he is such a smart man, but does he not realise that his persistent comments about how underrated GKs are just makes him look so hypocritical?
He was the only person who didn’t think we needed a better GK for the past few years.
In more positive news, how on earth did we land Cech! The guy is just insane. Still can’t believe it
Pretty sure it was in the first half , the ball came out of Bournemouths box (after a corner to us), going towards the touchline on the far side where a Cherry player was in position to get it.
Next fucking thing , this mad Arsenal player is bombarding out of the box at speed, and slides/ tackles the ball into touch. Bursting your bollocks to break up a non dangerous (yet) bit of potential Bournemouth possession!!!
Guess who?
Arshavin??
Well to be honest, Wenger did try to sign reina for 20m around 2010/11. I guess as scz emerged, he genuinely saw him as our first choice for years.
And what a relief, I personally thin Reina was always a bit dodgy. I am so glad we developed szcz for a couple of years, to eventually grab what must be one of the bargains of premiership purchases in Petr. A truly class act who will continue to augment Arsenal’s qualities for years to come.
I’m a big fan of Gabriel and I’m confident that he knows his role for this season’s Arsenal. Of course he wants to play more, but he is our #3 CB. A very good #3 at that! Per & Kos are the starters and Gabriel can flit in seamlessly when either are injured or are in need of a rest like Kos was last game. Gabriel will be a big player for Arsenal for many years to come hopefully, but despite not playing too much this season, he has a very important role to play in this potential title winning… Read more »
“Aside from the red card at Chelsea… Gabriel has integrated into Premier League life with gusto.” I would say kicking Diego Costa has been a central component of integrating Gabriel into our affections.
And that really just boils down to “aside from some terrible reffing” anyway.
Quote from Gabriel
“When I got here, I saw that Arsenal have the ability to do it. We have great players to win the biggest competitions. I’m sure that me, my team-mates and everyone that works here will make history.
“I will have my name remembered here for my son and your sons to see that we won the Champions League, the Premier League, the best competitions, because Arsenal are capable of doing it.”
Read more at http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/20151014/gabriel-i-want-to-make-history-here#Dg8H4lgMsfYSkfLV.99
We are going to win everything with an inspirational attitude like that.
Again, he has not been brought in to ‘replace anyone.
Gabriel is brought in to be a genuine option to rotate through Meterscielny.
He has attributes of both and huge potential to further improve. But Per is still positionally excellent and Koscielny still more experienced as an interceptor type sweeper.
gabriel however is making massive strides if judging by large games and we will need all 3 of them.