Mikel Arteta has dismissed the notion that William Saliba and Gabriel had a heated argument following Arsenal’s 1-0 win against Leicester City over the weekend.
Mikel Arteta has been speaking ahead of Arsenal’s Premier League clash against Everton on Wednesday night, but first, he had to clear up the situation involving William Saliba and Gabriel Magalhaes.
Following the Gunners’ 1-0 win over Leicester City at the weekend, the central defensive pair appeared to clash at the final whistle with The Athletic’s James McNicholas noting that “a few angry words exchanged between Saliba and Gabriel at full-time. Frenchman appeared to push his partner away. Some sort of disagreement. Sure it’ll blow over.”
However, replays have since shown that both Saliba and Gabriel were smiling during this particular exchange which suggests any sort of disagreement was a minor one and Arteta’s response with regard to what happened between his first-choice defensive pairing was telling.
“They are a happy marriage,” the Spaniard said in his pre-Everton press conference. “As you can see they are very passionate and also very demanding. Everything is fine. Yes. I don’t want robots. I want players with feeling, with passion that make demands of each other, but that have that chemistry. And those two certainly have that chemistry on and off the field. I love that even when winning they want to do better.”
It could have been that Saliba and Gabriel were reacting to helping Arsenal keep a clean sheet for the first time since the 2-0 win over Tottenham Hotspur last month having conceded 10 times across subsequent games against Manchester United, Manchester City, Everton, Brentford and Aston Villa.
In fact, the Gunners managed to limit the Foxes Leicester to just one shot in the match which is their lowest on record since the 2003/04 season in a single Premier League game and Arteta was certainly delighted with the defensive display.
“Yeah with set plays, and some sloppy goals with individual errors which are part of football,” the Spaniard said after the win at the King Power Stadium. “But the fact that we are not conceding goals and giving away chances is really important if you want to be constantly winning matches.”
source: www.football.london
