Gabriel x White
Arsenal’s best defensive pairing.
The gunners haven’t had a stabilized defence ever since the post mertesacker-koscielny era. Fans had to put up with comedic defensive horrors for years, players in mustafi, luiz, sokratis, chambers, gabriel paulista and co. were never anywhere good enough for the level of a club like arsenal. Especially the past few years, our defense had gone from below average to bad heck, to worse at a point where any team would come and exploit the open loopholes at the back.
One thing that has significantly improved under Arteta is our defence. During his first full season as a professional manager, the 20/21, Arsenal had the 3rd best defence in the league, conceding only 39 the whole season, only bettered by Chelsea and Manchester city. During that season, we signed one of the best defenders from ligue 1; Gabriel Magalhaes from Lille. The Brazilian only cost us an odd 25 million and during his first 2 months playing at arsenal, he already won 2 arsenal player of the month. Gabriel was a constant, Mikel tried pairing him up with the other personnel we had; Holding, chambers, luiz, Mari. David luiz out of them turned out to be his suitable partner. Whilst Gabriel was more of a physical and rough defender, David luiz was better on the ball and his passing was top notch. That’s when the Spaniard got a hunch of the sort of a pairing he wants in defence as David luiz was ageing and had developed alot of flaws in his game.
That’s when we signed Ben White, though the next season, 21/22. The purchase of the Brighton man was criticized alot as we paid 50+ odd million for a “nobody”, 50 million for someone who’s nowhere near an elite level player, and that was true to an extent, Arsenal fan’s themselves were scrutinizing Arteta for this signing, especially seeing Manchester United getting Varane for a price way lesser than that. But Mikel knew what he was doing, and boy was it so right. To make such a decision knowing that people will grab your throat, requires some cojones.
This pair turned out to be the best partnership we’ve had in a long time, some even debate they’re better than the last of this sort; mertesacker-koscielny. These two combined accumulated a total of 13 clean sheets together this season already and there’s just a bit less than half a season remaining.
They compliment each other quite well on the pitch, Gabriel being left footed and the latter being right surely helps alot in keeping the ball composedly or just playing it out from the back with bare risks. Both of them are rapid, they’re very fast which helps arteta imply the high defensive line with no fear of the defence being left out. They are quick enough to track back.
Both Gabriel and White are so good with the ball, spraying passes up front or switching it diagonally across the field which is a key component in Arteta’s preferred playing style which requires to build up flawlessly from the back. The perfect definition of modern day centre halves.
Let’s have a statistical look at how they fare out when in possession…
Evidently, White overall is the better passer and better at progressing the ball forward. That’s one of his main traits and that’s what caught the eyes of Arteta and Edu, White’s versatility is one of a kind, at Brighton, Graham potter usually deployed him as a right back, right wing back and even a central defensive midfielder which helped in up-skilling White’s abilities. Though Gabriel has some decent ball playing and carrying abilities as well, he’s second to his partner in this regard.
Defensively, one of the best in the league statistically as well as visually, ever since they’ve been playing together, improvements at the back have been easily noticeable. Let’s have a brief breakdown of how the pair pan out defensively…
Again, not much difference. Both are equally good, if not better than each other in some aspects. Though aerially, the Brazilian is evidently better. Standing at 190 cm, a brick wall-esque figure, he compensates for White’s weaknesses in bodying opponents and winning those aerial duels.
Concluding it, the duo of Gabriel n' White have been revolutionary, never have the fans felt this secure in terms of defending in a long time. Having a proper, rock solid back line is essential for a team to compete at the highest level. As once the great Sir Alex Ferguson said, “attack wins you games, defences wins you titles”.
The best thing is, both of 'em are 24. So young yet so good, it’s flabbergasting to think they’ll only improve from here seeing both of them are extremely professional. Our backline seems to have been set for the next half a decade to come. Los geht’s.
