Arsenal: So why did we sell Gabriel Paulista again?

Arsenal’s defense is struggling to stay healthy, which is hard to forecast, granted, but it raises the question of why we sold Gabriel Paulista in the first place.

Arsenal used to always have this knack of leaving the club incredibly thin thanks to odd sales and lack of purchasing reinforcements. I thought they had kicked that habit. Yet here we are, going into international break (thank God) and we are stretched for quality defenders.

Now, it’s always hard to predict injuries, but you have to always be prepared for the worst. That’s a simple concept to understand. That way you can avoid situations where you’re left scrambling for Premier League quality players.

With a back three, it is bare minimum to have six defenders on staff. That way you can have two different sets of a back three to account for the Premier League and then all the midweek fixtures.

But that is bare minimum because as soon as you face a single injury or a single player out of form, where do you turn? You have to either retool a midfield (Arsene Wenger’s specialty) or you have to use your defenders twice, even three times in the same week.

Seven is a good number for defenders. Then you have a floater who can fill in as necessary. Seven was the magic number that the Gunners had going into the summer. And then they sold their seventh, Gabriel Paulista, and didn’t bring anyone else in.

Now, with Laurent Koscielny and Calum Chambers both injured, the defense is stretched. And while it hasn’t hurt them as of yet, the whole point is that we shouldn’t be in this position at all. Avoidable problems – this should go without saying – should be avoided.

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Gabriel may not have clicked as quickly as we would have liked, but that was mostly down to injuries. The Brazilian had tremendous quality when he was on his game. I always cite the same examples, but I’ll do it again – he pocketed Romelu Lukaku on two separate occasions. You can’t do that by chance.

Arsenal have a solid foundation in defense, but with Per Mertesacker retiring and Koscielny getting up their in age, they are soon going to be faced with a situation where they are either going to have to trust in the form of a pair of young English defenders or make significant investments.

Hopefully there is a plan in place. Because if we stick with this back three, having just six defenders on staff is always going to be risky. Unfortunately, I don’t see Wenger buying two, let alone three, defenders in any transfer window. So let’s get to hoping that Krystian Bielik is about ready.

Back to the subject of Gabriel, I just don’t understand the sale in general. Was there some pressing need to get rid of him? It’s hard to think that there would be, as he openly expressed how much he loved it here.

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When you sell guys, you generally replace them, and this is why. It’s not like that money went anywhere anyways. I just hope Mohamed Elneny is not the answer.

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