Big Gabi on her own turf – Suburban Gooners

With Jurrien Timber the only concern for us last night in terms of injury concerns, today is getting a bit quiet, with a number of players playing today, including Big Gabi I suppose, at the Emirates Stadium, as we host the Selection against Senegal. It’s a bit of a Big Gabi party during these two friendlies, with the Brazilian playing at his current home ground this evening, as well as at his old home of Lille next week. I wonder if he’ll say “Nah Vini Jr, that’s MY peg over there – move your stuff somewhere else, man”. I’d like to think he would.

He’s a colossus, isn’t he? I remember when we signed him in September 2020. Like you, I’m sure, I Googled and YouTubed a bit about this young lad we’d just brought in for something around the £23m mark plus add-ons. I don’t travel the French league, I don’t watch any games, so it was a bit of a kick for a guy who himself had only been at Lille for a few seasons and had previously spent time on loan in France and Croatia. One of the things I read about him back then that I loved was that he wins a lot of ground duels. The dominant narrative was that he doesn’t go to the ground too often and prefers to stand, but he wins a lot of standing ground duels, which is something we needed in a recent era of Mustafi and David Luiz.

In fact, Luiz acted as a mentor to him during that first season, with the two often playing together and having a fellow Brazilian at the back must have benefited him during those early months. He played 32 times in that first season and logged 2,807 minutes in a decent season opener, although I remember him not being 100% the rock he is today. In fact, I seem to remember a few uncertain moments and a red card in the Premier League somewhere, such was a slightly erratic, but younger version of Big Gabi who had the inevitable young defender error within him.

But for every season he has spent at Arsenal, he has been the ‘monster’ that David Luiz described him at the time. He grew from year to year and when Saliba broke through, Big Gabi was already established. I’ve read a few things from Arsenal fans, listened to a few pods, talking about how he’s probably even surpassed Saliba in terms of importance and as much as I absolutely adore him. Big billI have to agree with that. When Saliba came on the scene, he was the flavor of the month. The following season he was seen as the cool, calm and cultured centre-half, while Big Gabi was the roaring lion. Fire and Iceif you want. But especially this season and I would say probably for the end of last season where he was injured for so long, his presence was felt more keenly than anyone, I think. He’s a defender first and foremost and we all love his jaw-dropping tackles or punches in front of the crowd at the Emirates, but his prowess in the box is insane now. Every time we come to a corner, the cameras pan to where he is. He has become an unstoppable force and his reputation is such that people think he scores in every game. But he’s only (HA! ‘ONLY!) scored two goals so far this season. That’s in 17 games and over 1,300 minutes. So it’s not like he’s always on the scoresheet.

But that doesn’t matter. If the reputation around him means that he is given more attention than other players on set pieces, then that gives the opportunity for other players to make an impact, whether it is Big Vik, Saliba or Calafiori. It doesn’t matter who scores, it doesn’t matter who scores, as long as we keep getting those corner goals and clean sheets (minus last weekend, obviously). It’s a bit the same thing with Saka too. Teams are doubling up on him in that right wing spot which means there is one less player on another part of the pitch and this frees up more space for our other attackers, which if we move the ball quickly enough this can be another way we can create chances by occupying the left backs and central midfielders in our right wing position. If Big Gabi can take a few defenders with him to a corner, there are other spaces that other players could hopefully take advantage of.

We just need him to stay fit all season and I wonder if that means Arteta needs to think about rotating him a bit more over the next few months. There are some players he doesn’t rotate much with – Raya, Saka, Odegaard (when fit) and Big Gabi. We need to think about a solution in this regard and I wonder if we need to think more about Hincapie and Calafiori. Both have played in this central position before – although nominally as left centre-back in a trio – and even yesterday against Canada, Hincapie started at left-back. I think they will both fight for spots at left back, but we also need to protect Big Gabi by managing his minutes, I think. He had a pretty big injury last season that kept him out for a long time, we don’t want that to happen again this season. Honestly, I’m not sure we can afford it.

But I feel like I’m tiptoeing into “worry” territory, whereas today it’s about giving our Number six and king of Brazil some flowers.

Keep it up, Big Gabi. Have a good game on your home turf tonight, but stay fresh and don’t get injured.

Back tomorrow with more thoughts.