Arsenal: Gabriel Paulista losing unnecessary transfer battle

Arsenal should definitely be looking to offload some dead weight, but Gabriel Paulista was certainly not in that category.

Arsene Wenger has highlighted the importance of offloading some of Arsenal’s senior players that we will never see with the first team. Guys like Carl Jenkinson, Mathieu Debuchy, Lucas Perez and Kieran Gibbs should be gone by the end of the month, yet no one seems to be getting any closer.

Nobody except Gabriel Paulista.

From the start of the transfer window it looked like either Gabriel or Calum Chambers was going to leave, despite the fact that massive defensive depth would be required this season and having both of them on board was pretty important to that depth.

It doesn’t seem to be in Arsenal’s best interest to be selling perfectly capable defenders with plenty of upside (he’s only 26) when we just surrendered three easy goals against Leicester City.

And if you want to highlight individual matches where Gabriel didn’t fare so well, I can point out just as many where he did fare well, namely every time he faced Romelu Lukaku. Literally.

So now we seem to be resolving the duel between Gabriel and Chambers as numerous sources are citing an impending departure for the Brazilian, as he heads back to Spain to join Valencia for a rather paltry fee of £10m.

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And while we can sit here and celebrate that Chambers will therefore most likely stay, having won the duel, I’m sitting here wondering why we even fought the battle in the first place when so many dead weight players are still taking up space with no hope of ever touching the pitch this season.

Gabriel was perfectly capable in that defense and he never even got his chance to make it in the new 3-4-2-1, which would have suited his mobility even more.

The move isn’t official yet (as of writing), but with so many sources saying the same thing, it looks like it’s just a matter of time. In the midst of the defensive inquisition, we are shipping off a quality option for peanuts. And in exchange, we get to keep all the players we most certainly don’t want for even longer.

Next: 3 Defining Positional Battles Of 2017/18

This move puts a lot of pressure on Rob Holding and Chambers to step up and be unquestionable members of this first team. It also opens the door for another potential center back move in the coming transfer windows.

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