I'm not a fan. He's another of the modern day defender that is all athleticism and speed. We already have Gabriel for that. I think we really need a defender to compliment Koscielny that is a bit more old school; dominant aerially, big, strong, intelligent...not many of them around these days.

I like him a lot.
United, Chelsea and Arsenal have been interested in the last 24 months. He's in demand. Considering Roma bought him 2 years ago and he's their star CB, he'll cost a bomb. Think these are just rumours that have been made up/rehashed.

Ricky1985 wrote:

I'm not a fan. He's another of the modern day defender that is all athleticism and speed. We already have Gabriel for that. I think we really need a defender to compliment Koscielny that is a bit more old school; dominant aerially, big, strong, intelligent...not many of them around these days.

Yeah. Pre-Gabriel I will take him but not now. We need someone more accomplished.

We were interested in him before and missed out, could be an option.

Manolas is much better than Gabriel. Smart, technical centreback in the Kos mold. He looks like he's going to be a boss in a few years.

I agree with the sentiment though; we shouldn't sign players on this level when we have guys like Chambers rotting on the bench. Either give Calum a chance next year or sign someone world class. No need to dabble with defenders who are somewhere in-between.

Never know with Gabriel. Wouldn't be the first CB to struggle but come good after a move to the prem. Even blokes like vidic and stam got written off at first.

Gunner89 wrote:

Vidic came in a winter and struggled for a few months but he had a great full season.

Gabriel's been here a year and a half already and if anything looks much worse than last season.

It's not like he's having good games riddled by some mistakes like Koscielny did early on here.

They're just complete disasters. He was taken to the cleaners yesterday. God knows how many times he got skinned.

He has had good games, plenty of them. It's worrying that in 2016 he has had more bad games than good games, but before that he looked the real deal.

Captain wrote:

Never know with Gabriel. Wouldn't be the first CB to struggle but come good after a move to the prem. Even blokes like vidic and stam got written off at first.

True but he has been here a while now, other guys usually took about 6 months before finding their feet.  I remember reading a few weeks ago that he is starting to understand his colleagues on the pitch, he's taking his time picking the language up!

The language is a valid point. It's been raised before but I can't remember by who (I think it might have been Henry Winter?).

He started to understand his colleagues on the pitch a few weeks ago? That's when he turned to shit.

Gabriel strikes me as not that intelligent on the language front so I wouldn't hold out much hope there. His Spanish was pretty poor I remember being mentioned before we signed him.

If he is good enough he will certainly be given the time to show it under Wenger s project management style.