{"id":562652,"date":"2020-09-01T11:30:07","date_gmt":"2020-09-01T15:30:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonfootball.com\/?p=562652"},"modified":"2026-01-30T16:38:28","modified_gmt":"2026-01-30T21:38:28","slug":"gabriel-magalhaes-signs-arsenal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2020\/09\/01\/gabriel-magalhaes-signs-arsenal\/","title":{"rendered":"Gabriel Magalhaes Signs for Arsenal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Lille defender <a href=\"https:\/\/www.transfermarkt.co.uk\/gabriel-magalhaes\/profil\/spieler\/435338\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Gabriel Magalhaes<\/a> has signed for <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonfootball.com\/clubs\/arsenal\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Arsenal<\/a>, choosing a move to the Emirates over a transfer to Serie A side Napoli.<\/p>\n<p>The Brazilian had also been a target for\u00a0 <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonfootball.com\/clubs\/everton\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Everton<\/a> at one stage but chose North London as the next destination in his developing career.<\/p>\n<h2>Gabriel Magalhaes Completes Arsenal Move<\/h2>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">\ud83d\uddde Central defender Gabriel has joined us from French side Lille on a long-term contract!<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Arsenal (@Arsenal) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Arsenal\/status\/1300818227468140556?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">September 1, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h3>Napoli Made Last-Ditch Salary Offer to the Player<\/h3>\n<p>Arsenal were favourites to sign the 22-year-old ever since football returned from lockdown, and now confirmation of the deal is official. The player signs on a long-term contract with the club.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.skysports.com\/football\/news\/12962\/12051906\/gabriel-napoli-make-big-salary-offer-to-arsenal-target\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Sky Sports News had reported <\/a>that in addition to Arsenal, two other European clubs met Lille\u2019s \u00a327 million asking price for the defender. Among them were Italian club Napoli, who also made a late attempt to entice the player to move to Serie A with a lucrative contract offer.<\/p>\n<p>Gabriel, however, always favoured a move to the Premier League. This means Arsenal remained ahead of the chasing pack even before a transfer could be finalised.<\/p>\n<h3>No Club Interference Over Gabriel&#8217;s Arsenal Decision, Says Lille President<\/h3>\n<p>Lille president <a href=\"https:\/\/fbref.com\/en\/players\/403b0279\/Gerard-Lopez?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Gerard Lopez<\/a> told the media that the French club would not seek to influence the player over which club he chose to move to this summer.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We clearly told him what our expectations were, we spoke to a number of clubs, our expectations were met by a number of clubs and we have given him the time to decide,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.skysports.com\/football\/news\/12962\/12051906\/gabriel-napoli-make-big-salary-offer-to-arsenal-target\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">said the 48-year-old<\/a> before Arsenal agreed terms with the Brazilian.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It is going to be entirely his decision. We tend to try and steer our players in certain directions, but at the end of the day it&#8217;s the player&#8217;s decision.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He is a super guy and a great football player and he wants to play. There has been a lot of interest but we have clearly decided to close the door to further clubs at this stage and let him choose.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>After Lille opened the door to a move to Arsenal, the player became fully committed on a transfer to the Premier League club.<\/p>\n<p>Gabriel joins recent additions <a href=\"https:\/\/www.transfermarkt.co.uk\/willian\/profil\/spieler\/52769\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Willian<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/fbref.com\/en\/players\/aa54ec6f\/Pablo-Mari?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Pablo Mari<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/fbref.com\/en\/players\/972aeb2a\/William-Saliba?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">William Saliba<\/a> in moving to North London. If no central defenders leave the squad this summer, then Gunners manager <a href=\"https:\/\/fbref.com\/en\/players\/d934d1e6\/Mikel-Arteta?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Mikel Arteta<\/a> will have eight players to choose from in that position.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"Q3SKAE8BR1F71kx33q-Pmw\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.co.uk\/detail\/1202258531\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'Q3SKAE8BR1F71kx33q-Pmw',sig:'wwDPUcLTrKjm6jy6foealLF3RVUmWnns4-3I3nu-bUU=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'1202258531',caption: true ,tld:'co.uk',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lille defender Gabriel Magalhaes has signed for Arsenal, choosing a move to the Emirates over a transfer to Serie A side Napoli. The Brazilian had also been a target for\u00a0 Everton at one stage but chose North London as the next destination in his developing career. Gabriel Magalhaes Completes Arsenal Move \ud83d\uddde Central defender Gabriel [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3563,"featured_media":563400,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8,2,7,3,28],"tags":[32739,32738,4982,4014,4372,895,4733,40,48,136],"class_list":["post-562652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-featured","category-ligue-1","category-premier-league","category-transfers","tag-arsenal","tag-arsenal-fixtures","tag-gabriel-magalhaes","tag-losc-lille","tag-mikel-arteta","tag-napoli","tag-pablo-mari","tag-premier-league","tag-serie-a","tag-world-football"],"modified_by":"Michael Kovacs, ADMIN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3563"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=562652"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562652\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":664391,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562652\/revisions\/664391"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/563400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=562652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=562652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=562652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}