David Seaman singles out £27m Arsenal player for praise after Man United win

Add as preferred source on Google

Arsenal legend David Seaman gave special praise to defender Gabriel Magalhaes after his performance against Manchester United.

Seaman was speaking on the Seaman Says Podcast and was very pleased with Sunday’s result.

Although Arsenal and Manchester United aren’t necessarily fighting each other for league titles these days, the fierce rivalry still very much remains.

Mikel Arteta finally gave first starts of the season to Gabriel Magalhaes and Oleksandr Zinchenko in defence.

The pair were first-choice last season but have been out of the team at the beginning of this campaign.

Immediately, Arsenal looked more settled than in their most recent games where Arteta has slightly tweaked his tactics.

Pushing Ben White out onto the right provided a familiar combination with Bukayo Saka that caused the visitors problems.

Gabriel Martinelli was also a menace and the extra space allowed to him by Zinchenko moving infield provided some fascinating battles with Aaron Wan-Bissaka.

However, Seaman wanted to highlight how well Gabriel did against Man United, and in particular one moment right at the end of the match that had huge implications for the result.

The £27m centre-back’s awareness in the final minutes ended up turning a defeat into three points.

Seaman praises Gabriel after United win

The moment in question was Alejandro Garnacho’s disallowed second goal for Erik ten Hag’s side in the 88^th minute.

The Argentinian raced through on goal to score, but replays showed he was marginally offside.

Speaking about the incident, Seaman said: “Who was it that went through for Man United? [Alejandro] Garnacho, when he went through, my first reaction was, ‘Oh, he could be offside’.

“I’ll tell you why because Gabriel [Magalhaes] did amazingly holding his line.

“When you see a still of it, he’s almost like bending over to keep on the line to try and get him offside, he does brilliantly there.”

Virtually every Arsenal fan will agree with Seaman that Gabriel’s awareness at that moment was pivotal in their win against Man United.

Mikel Arteta now has a big decision to make over whether he keeps the Brazilian in the side after the international break.

It would be very harsh to drop him after Sunday’s performance.

However, it’s taken two injuries to finally include him in the side suggesting Arteta hasn’t been rushing to introduce him to the team.