Former Arsenal winger Jermaine Pennant told us exclusively what he thinks the Gunners will miss with Gabriel out injured.
It is the biggest injury of the season so far for Arsenal, as Gabriel has arguably been the best player under Mikel Arteta. He was a big part of their eight-game clean sheet streak, and as any FPL players know, he was having a stand-out season as a centre-back.
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However, he suffered an injury whilst on international duty with Brazil, and now is going to at least miss the game against Tottenham this weekend, and potentially more.
It is a huge loss for Arsenal, and Mikel Arteta will now have to consider how to replace him. He has Cristhian Mosquera and Piero Hincapie both as good options behind Gabriel, but we will only see on Sunday who he chooses.
Pennant says Arsenal will feel attacking decline more than defence
We had the chance to speak with former Arsenal and Liverpool winger Jermaine Pennant this week via NewBettingSites.UK, and we asked him how much of a loss it will be for Arsenal without Gabriel for the next couple of games.
Pennant said: “It’s not going to effect them massively defensively, because they have got good players who can come in. It’s not going to hurt them that much, they’ve got Mosquera. You saw when Saliba went off at Liverpool, he [Mosquera] came in and there wasn’t much difference.”
Rather than losing out defensively, Pennant says he thinks Arsenal will feel the effect of Gabriel’s injury more due to his threat from set pieces. He said: “But, what they will miss is the attacking prowess of Gabriel on set pieces. Most of their goals have either been him scoring, or getting the flick on and being a nuisance, and they’re going to lose that. It’s funny that we’re saying they’re going to lose a defender, but they’re going to lose attacking prowess. It’s going to be a big miss.”
Finally, as a sympathiser to any Gabriel owners in FPL, we told Pennant it was a nightmare for managers in FPL, to which he simply replied: “Tell me about it”.
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