Last season, when Per Mertesacker showed signs of beginning the twilight of his career, Arsenal fans were crying out for a new defender. Arsenal’s only other true centre-backs were Laurent Koscielny and the inexperienced Calum Chambers — who was still adapting to the change from right-back to centre-half — and they had resorted to playing full-backs such as Nacho Monreal and Mathieu Debuchy in the centre. Late in the 2015 January transfer window, Arsenal signed the defender many had craved, but in the shape of a man many had not heard of: Gabriel Paulista.
In his eighteen months in Spain Gabriel did not set La Liga alight, but gained a reputation amongst Villarreal fans as a sound defender. His performances were by no means world class — he made a handful of silly mistakes and needed to win more duels — but his pace, passing and positioning meant that he had the potential to be a very good defender. Certainly, he would at the very least prove strong backup to Mertesacker and Koscielny.
The first problem in his early days was revealed by Arsène Wenger: He couldn’t speak a word of English. Communication is one of the most important aspects of defending, so having someone who didn’t even know how to say: “WOJCIECH, STAY ON YOUR LINE. YOU ARE NOT MANUEL NEUER” in the heart of defence would be a problem.
The language barrier meant that he didn’t feature all too much in his first season, but thankfully Arsenal suffered very few injuries and were able to bed him in sparingly. When he did play, he looked promising. His positioning was excellent, his distribution from the back helped build the team’s play, and he carried his six feet and one inch very well in the air. He was not tested against truly top class opposition, but he did not make any defensive errors and won every single match he played in. He even played a part in Arsenal’s second FA Cup win in as many games.
At the start of this season, Per Mertesacker was still preferred ahead of him in the starting line-up. There are rumours of language issues still lingering — knowing Wenger, he won’t be satisfied with his linguistic skills until he is fully comfortable with semicolon usage and has read through the entire works of Dickens — but injury problems gave the Brazilian his chance to shine.
Against Liverpool, Gabriel was superb. His passing was perfect, he was almost invincible in the air, he made a number of important challenges and he did much to help the struggling Calum Chambers. Arsenal drew 0-0 and will have been disappointed to drop two points, but Gabriel’s performance was a real positive. On Saturday against Newcastle, he was immaculate again. Due in no small part to the return of Laurent Koscielny he had much less to do, but he didn’t put a foot wrong and made a couple of excellent passes and defensive headers to stop any of the threat McClaren’s men could muster.
Early signs look promising for Gabriel. He has much to prove and needs to continue to put in performance like these for a long period of time before he can be considered up to standard. However, he is yet to make a disastrous error, and Arsenal have won six and drawn one of the seven games he has started. Certainly, things have been largely positive for him and once he sorts out his English problems and settles down, he could be the answer to Arsenal’s centre-half problem.
Arsène Wenger’s men have ambitions of winning the league title. The most important part of a title-winning team is the defence. Nacho Monreal and Hector Bellerin have proven themselves to be very strong full-backs indeed, and in Laurent Koscielny the Gunners have one of the best centre-backs in the world. The signing of Petr Cech means that they have one of the most reliable goalkeepers in the business between the sticks. However, the gradual decline of Mertesacker means that the final piece in the jigsaw is yet to be put in. Gabriel could be that piece.
Arsenal do not necessarily need another world-class centre-half. Someone of the calibre of Diego Godín, Gerard Piqué or Thiago Silva would make them world-beaters, but in reality all that is needed is a defender who does not make errors and can mop up the one or two mistakes that Koscielny will make in the entire season. Gabriel has not played alongside the Frenchman enough to have created an understanding with him, but the pair have looked like a very solid unit thus far. At 24, Gabriel is still young, but he has shown maturity beyond his years when playing for Arsenal.
His time at Arsenal will require patience. It will take some time for him to build a partnership with Koscielny, and for this reason he needs to play in the first team as often as possible. His extra pace and ability to dominate in defence means that he should start ahead of Mertesacker. Wenger may be hesitant about starting him due to his language problems, but so far this has not caused him to come unstuck. After the international break, Arsenal have a long run of fixtures which contain a number of difficult games. Hopefully, Gabriel will be able to play a large part in this run alongside Koscielny.
Above all else, the best barometer of defender’s ability is how many errors he makes. Koscielny has made the transition from solid option to top class because he rarely makes a mistake nowadays. Gabriel himself has looked adroit at the back, but he must continue to avoid calamity to prove himself a worthy member of the starting eleven. It will be very interesting to see how much he is utilised in the next two months of Arsenal’s campaign.
