Posted by Previously: Goalkeeper. Fullback.
Arsenal’s defense (third best in the league, as every Arteta apologist will tell you) returns over 5,500 minutes at centerback, but none with the Sideshow Bob haircut that brought so many highs—and lows—over the past two seasons.
Mikel Arteta made no secret his admiration of David Luiz, playing him nearly every game he was fit and giving him a voice at the heart of the Arsenal back line. But he’s gone now. In his place: A new €60 million toy.
| Left Centerback | Age | Contract | Right Centerback | Age | Contract |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gabriel | 23 | June 2025 | Ben White | 23 | June 2026 |
| Pablo Marí | 28 | June 2024 | Rob Holding | 26 | June 2024 |
Left Center Back: Gabriel dos Santos Magalhães
Rating: 6/10
We’ll start on the other side for now, where the Gunners return two left-footed central defenders for the first time in recent memory. And although Pablo Marí started the two Europa League semi-final games, this website moves forward with the assumption that Gabriel dos Santos Magalhães [scouting report] will be the guy at LCB. He certainly is the only one with the pace to play the high line Arteta seems to be implementing this season.
Signed for €26 million from Lille last summer, Gabriel wasted little time in acclimating to the Premier League. And by little, I mean 49 minutes.
But Gabriel’s season never really took off. After a 7/10 performances vs. Fulham and a 6/10 one against West Ham, Arteta inexplicably dropped him for the club’s third Premier League match vs. Liverpool. We all remember how that went.
He missed six weeks around Christmas, spending the bulk of them in Arteta’s doghouse following first a red card suspension, then a positive Covid-19 test. Happy Birthday to him. When he did return, Gabriel did so with little of the aggressiveness and intensity he had shown during the opening weeks of the season.
If Arsenal are to reach the heights they’re hoping for, Gabriel (along with others) will have to take a leap in year two. Whether or not he does probably depends the severity of his injury.
After initially accepting a Brazilian call up for the 2020 Olympic Games, Gabriel pulled out with “knee tendonitis.” Nearly a month later and he still hasn’t trained. Arteta wasn’t optimistic of his chances to feature vs. Brentford at his post-Chelsea presser two weeks ago:
“We don’t know [about his availability vs. Brentford]. He’s still injured. He picked up an injury doing the preparation for the Olympics and at the moment, he’s not been able to train with us. That seems unlikely at the moment but hopefully he can recover quickly.”
He’s giving it a shot at least:
Arsenal will need him to be ready (and ready early) if they’re going to reach their season targets.
Reserves
Rating: 4/10
Gabriel’s injury likely means a starting place for Pablo Marí to start the season. Plucked from Flamengo in January 2020, Marí made just two appearances—the last game before Covid shutdown vs. West Ham, and the first game back against Man City—before an ankle injury ended his 2019-20 season
Arteta described him at the time as “someone that trains really hard” and someone who “gives you some security and stability.”
I’m not sure I agree. Marí has struggled with the pace of the Premier League, frequently making rash challenges and conceding fouls in dangerous areas. He has his strengths. Security and stability aren’t it.
His technical skill on the ball probably is. Prior to Marí arriving, Total Football Analysis profiled his time at Flamengo:
Marí has proved to be a good passer, helping a lot with both retaining possession in his own half and helping with the build-up from the back. Being confident on the ball and managing to slow down the tempo, despite the opponents pressuring him is one of his best qualities. His range of passing is impressive as he reached an average of 91,3% accurate passes in the past year.
Still, his inability to keep pace with the modern Premier League player caps his ceiling. He’s been exposed this pre-season. And that’s putting it mildly:
Marí will get his share of games this year because Arteta seems hellbent on playing a left-footed player at LCB. For the sake of the club (and Arteta himself), hopefully it’s not as many as last year.
Right Center Back: Ben White
Rating: 7/10
The €60 million toy.
Arsenal have splashed the cash to bring Brighton’s Ben White to the Emirates. The Gunners’ third best defense isn’t where I would have made an outlay of that magnitude (especially given the squad’s shortcomings at the other end of the pitch), but based on White’s profile I can see why Arteta and Edu did.
First, the logistics: White is 23, homegrown, and an England international. That alone has seen transfer records broken.
But he’s more than just young and English. Stats show a player comfortable with the ball at his feet, and the pace to recover when beaten. At Arsenal, he’s set to come in as a ready-made David Luiz replacement. Hopefully without the red cards.
What White’s stats don’t tell you, his tape does:
Former European scout Tor-Kristian Karlsen called him “a happy marriage between an old-school centre-half and the modern-day sophisticated centre-back” for ESPN back in February:
On the one hand he’s one of the most eager tacklers in the Premier League and he does not shy away from the physical dimension of the game, while on the other he’s mobile, quick at changing direction and moving around the pitch, calm in possession and a measured passer of the ball (the latter two qualities being useful in escaping pressing from opposing forwards).
At 6’0″, White is on the shorter end of Premier League defenders. So was Kolo Touré.
He’s Premier League ready, and famously played every minute for Marcelo Bielsa’s Leeds United in the Championship two seasons ago. There’s a world—a good one if you’re an Arsenal fan—in which he does so at Arsenal in 2021-22.
Reserves
Rating: 4/10
Three years after doing his ACL, opinion remains largely split at the Emirates (and certainly on Twitter) as to whether Rob Holding is good enough for Arsenal Football Club.
After briefly siding with the naysayers last summer (and exploring a permanent sale to Newcastle), Arteta reversed course and opted to keep the 25-year-old at the Emirates. Holding repaid his faith by starting 36 games in all competitions and playing 3,353 minutes (third most on the team, behind Granit Xhaka and Bukayo Saka).
In a season in which the club finished eighth, that might not be a good thing. Arsenal went 13-5-10 in his Premier League starts (1.57 points per game), and 5-2-3 in games he didn’t (1.7 points per game). Remove the five game winning streak to end the year when Arsenal’s season was effectively over, and Arsenal totaled just 1.33 points per game with him in the lineup.
He’s just a guy. If he can step in for 5-10 games this season, sign me up. If he’s Arsenal’s best defender again, Champions League qualification is off the table. Europa League probably is too.