TalkSPORT pundit Ally McCoist claims Arsenal centre-back pairing William Saliba and Gabriel are vital to the club’s ambitions of winning the Premier League title.
While the Gunners’ attacking players have taken all of the headlines with their exploits in recent weeks, McCoist says the key to Mikel Arteta’s side maintaining their title challenge is keeping the two defenders fit and available.
“Odegaard’s been brilliant, Saka‘s been brilliant, the front players have been different class, but I think the key to them moving on and continuing to progress, believe it or not, is the two centre-backs. I think as we saw last year, if you lose one of them, you can’t handle it.”
Any team with ambitions of winning the league have to have a strong defence and McCoist is right to highlight the importance of Saliba and Gabriel.
Arsenal may have the best centre-back pair in the top flight
If we look purely at the defensive numbers, you can see how much of an impact the likes of Saliba and Gabriel have on results.
In terms of xG against, Arsenal have conceded just 21.92, which is the lowest total in the Premier League by quite some way. City are second (on 25.55), while top of the table Liverpool are a distant third (32.81).
From those figures, it can be reasonably argued that the Gunners’ centre-back partnership is the best in England at the moment.
Saliba’s fitness has been excellent this season
Without jinxing things, it appears that the France international has gotten over the issues that plagued his first full campaign as a regular starter for Arsenal.
A back problem caused major issues for Saliba from March to the end of the last season and many have attributed his absence to the club’s title challenge falling apart.
As McCoist says, if the defender can stay fit (along with Gabriel), Arteta’s men will have a great chance of going all the way this time.
