Football journalist Dan Potts has recently shared his thoughts on Arsenal defender Pablo Mari.
This comes after Potts recently made an appearance on Arsenal-themed podcast The Chronicles Of A Gooner to discuss the latest news surrounding the London club.
After news broke out that Mari had made his loan spell from Flamengo permanent, Potts shared his thoughts on the defender and this latest move from the club.
He said: “He looks slower than Per Mertesacker, to be fair. His positioning gets him out of trouble a lot. He does look very commanding, he does look comfortable on the ball. I like the fact that he’s left-footed and we have a left-sided defender – that’s something that Mikel Arteta had identified as an issue at Arsenal – all of our centre backs were right-footed.
“So he’s managed to come in and straight away settled that debate, so to speak. I think with Pablo Mari, what I have seen [in] the games that he’s played, which have been extremely limited, he’s been one of the players that have impressed me on the pitch. That is a good thing, three times now, in the three games that he’s played.”
Have you been impressed with Pablo Mari from what you've seen so far?
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The former Manchester City man first joined Arsenal on loan from Flamengo in the previous January transfer window.
Since then, the Spaniard has only gone on to make three appearances for Arsenal’s first-team, with two of them coming in the Premier League (per Transfermarkt).
In those two Premier League appearances, despite only playing 114 minutes of action, his performances in those two games earned him a season rating of 6.95/10, making him Arsenal’s joint fourth highest-rated player so far for this campaign (per WhoScored).
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The fact that Arsenal have decided to make Mari’s loan deal at the Emirates permanent, this shows that they have been impressed with what they have seen from the defender, as has Potts.