Arsenal defender Gabriel was linked with several moves away from the Emirates Stadium – however, recent reports suggest that the Gunners had ‘no intention’ of letting him leave to join another club [via Fabrizio Romano on Twitter].
In Romano’s tweet, he wrote: “Arsenal never wanted to sell Gabriel Magalhaes this summer; never a concrete option despite interest from Saudi, not even a negotiation between clubs “Not even for €200m!”, this was the comment from sources close to negotiations replying to Gabriel-Saudi links.”
Should Arsenal have sold Gabriel?
Selling Gabriel would have been a daring – if not necessarily misguided – move by Arsenal. At the age of 25, he is not quite yet at his prime, but he is nonetheless one of the best centre-backs in world football.
With this being said, the Brazilian is far from infallible. He has a mistake in him and can be positionally negligent at times – last season, when his centre-back partner, William Saliba, suffered an injury and was ruled out of action, the Gunners’ form noticeably declined.
He’s very quick, is physically dominant and has brilliant technical ability for a defender, but the suggestion that Gabriel is too good to sell to another club seems to be somewhat rash – especially with some of the astronomical figures being thrown around.
What would have been an acceptable figure to sell Gabriel for?
To determine how much Gabriel is worth, we can first take a look at his estimated market value on Transfermarkt. According to them, he is worth an approximate sum of £47 million.
In today’s transfer market, where fees of over £100 million are becoming more and more commonplace, this seems to be a little low for what Gabriel offers. As we have mentioned, he excels in several areas of defending and is only going to get better when his relatively young age is taken into consideration.
Moreover, he has another attribute that is highly-coveted these days – he is a left-footed centre back. This allows Arsenal to play out from the back far more fluidly, widening their range of passing out of defence.
We would probably rate Gabriel at around £70 million – but, of course, this does not mean that the Gunners will accept a bid for him at this price.
