Magalhães. It’s Big Gabi, the Brazilian who bagged a brace against Palace, not to be confused with that other Brazilian Gabi who also bagged a brace against Palace. Depending on whom you ask, Gabriel has scored 12 or 13 Prem goals since his debut, mroe than anyone else in that time.
With his two goals in the first half, Gabriel Magalhães is on 13 PL goals and has now overtaken Tony Adams and William Gallas (12) and is only behind Laurent Koscielny (22) as Arsenal’s highest scoring defender in the Premier League. Ben Mee and Kurt Zouma are on 9 each. Only Virgil Van Djik, scorer of 22 Prem goals since 2015, has more. He’s played 162 Prem matches. Gabriel’s played 86. They’re scoring at similar rates, then, with Gabriel on a pace to perhaps score more. Consider that Van Djik’s played the last seven seasons for one of the Prem’s most free-wheeling, swash-buckling sides while Gabriel’s played the last four for a struggling, frustrating side (aside from last season), and we have might have to accept that it’s only a matter of time before he overtakes Van Djik.
Could he overtake Laurent Koscielny as the club’s top-scoring Prem defender? Kos scored 22 in his time here, so it isn’t preposterous. Looking further afield, club legend Tony Adams scored 32 top-flight goals, 20 in the FIrst Division and 12 in the Prem. I have a plan almost absurd in its audacity—more on that in a moment. For now, consider that Gabriel’s heading has always been stellar. Even when jousting with an opponent, his heading has more often than not led to an accurate pass to a teammate rather than an eyes-closed attempted clearance. We haven’t seen such a header since Giroud. Gabriel’s sense of the ball’s trajectory and of his own leaping are practically unmatched—you could see this for the first goal when he had to climb over Chris Richards but could still nod home sharply.
To circle back to this post’s title and to the previous paragraph, here’s my plan: should we find ourselves needing a late equaliser or winner, we move Gabriel up top. Play him as the target-man. Not only does he win aerial duels left and right, he clearly has a nose for goal. We’ve seen crazier adaptations play out: Saka at left-back. Partey at right-back. Chamakh, Squillaci, or Stepanovs…well, anywhere.
We have resources in reserve. Tomiyasu and White can slot in at CB. There’s Kiwior as well. With TImber close to a return, this kind of deck-shuffling doens’t have to feel quite as mad as it does from the off. Hell, if Harry Kane can fill in between the sticks, a centre-back can lead the line. It’s just crazy enough to work. What’s more, it would give us options across the front line. Jesus, Martinelli, Saka, Trossard, and Havertz could play a kind of three-card monte, swirling around Gabriel in a dizzying interplay. It’s a plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies.
Having signed Gabriel for just £27m back in 2020, it would be a madness to think we could fill a position that normally commands transfer fees three and four times that.
Ok, so I admit that is all a lark. Then again, is it? Would it really be so ludicrous to move to striker a centre-back who stands 1.9m (6’3″) and whose heading is, well, head and shoulders above his opposites? It’s just crazy enough to work. Then again, I may have head one too many celebratory belts of scotch, so you’ll have to excuse my ramblings…
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