Arsenal: David Luiz a brilliant acquisition no matter what

Arsenal brought in David Luiz for next to nothing, but after two starts, apparently he was never going to succeed. No matter what, he’s a brilliant addition.

I feel kind of bad. I was among the crew lambasting David Luiz after his show against Liverpool. But never in the span of him being at Arsenal have I questioned why Luiz is here. Not since I rashly said I’d rather Mustafi, which I have since addressed and, for all intents and purposes, retracted.

But there are some people out there who are being ridiculously unfair to the Brazilian. Simon Jordan, who I dedicated an entire article to, called him a show pony and essentially discredits Unai Emery entirely for signing the guy. ESPN (speaking of show ponies…) says that Luiz has confirmed that Arsenal haven’t changed. Dean Saunders says that Luiz was doomed from the start.

What the hell is wrong with people? Does no one understand why Luiz is here? Luiz is here because Rob Holding is hurt and William Saliba isn’t coming until next year. He is a stopgap. The kind of signing that teams will make. And with how cheap he was, what was there to lose?

Worst case scenario, literally worst case, Luiz falls out of the first choice set-up and gives way to Chambers and Holding and becomes the midweek guy, anchoring the defense in the FA Cup, League Cup, and Europa League.

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Would you rather Luiz in those competitions, or over-using our Premier League defenders? You want Luiz. A veteran of his caliber in competitions like that? You absolutely want that. Even if you want to keep up the “flat-track bully” narrative, that’s fine. When he’s beating up Rennes or FK Qarabag, maybe these people will see, but something tells me they won’t.

In signing Luiz, Emery had this as his worst case scenario. Best case was he was able to guide the first-choice defense to consistency for one year until youth grew, healed, and matured. It was worth a try, seeing as how we have players on the mend. It didn’t work, and it’s a matter of time before Chambers gets his go back in the starting XI.

Completely ripping the guy, and the team, after three matches that still see us in third place, is the same gross irresponsibility that shows (to borrow ESPN’s headline) that the modern media has not changed. They can’t make objective, sensible opinions. They have to go sensational in order to get clicks. That’s all this is about. If ESPN had said, “David Luiz a concern, but the future is clear,” it sounds far less flashy than “David Luiz proves that nothing has changed.”

It’s ridiculous. Luiz has his issues, but he was an experiment and like I said, if he falls into midweek competitions, fantastic! He beats what we had before.

Think. That’s all I’m asking you to do. Think. Don’t blindly ingest propaganda-like headlines that spew the same old “the end is near” bullsh*t. Actually think about it and you’ll understand everything just fine.