The Athletic journalist Amy Lawrence has recently provided an insight into Arsenal’s capture of defender David Luiz.
Lawrence was recently present as a guest on the Arsenal-oriented podcast ‘Handbrake Off’ and she was questioned about Luiz and what the Gunners had in mind when they signed him in the summer.
The central defender came on from the bench against Manchester City in midweek, but was at fault for City’s first goal and was also sent-off in the second half, which resulted in him giving away a penalty that was put away by Kevin De Bruyne.
Lawrence revealed that when Arsenal signed the Brazilian, it did make a ‘certain degree of sense’ as they had lost Laurent Koscielny to Ligue 1 outfit Bordeaux (10:02).
The journalist said: “I thought that under the circumstances, it was a deal that made a certain degree of sense, and really in the context of the situation Arsenal found themselves in with Koscielny suddenly wanting to go last summer. Had Koscielny stayed, I don’t think Arsenal would have been in for David Luiz at that particular moment in time.
Did Arsenal's signing of David Luiz make any sense?
Yes, it did make sense
No, he's clueless
“I think they had looked at him in the past as well. I don’t think this came out of absolutely thin air. But it felt a very convenient transfer – let’s also not forget that I think last summer, Arsenal were trying to offload [Shkodran] Mustafi as well and didn’t, so suddenly, they found themselves really short of defenders that they wanted to play at centre-half, and with unknowns over the likes of Rob Holding coming back from injury, and so on.
“So to get a guy in who has [a] fantastic wealth of experience under his belt and when you look at what he’s won in the past, it absolutely overshadows anything that others have won in the Arsenal squad, so he brings that straight into the dressing room. He’s also really popular and a good leader.”
Lawrence’s comments put the defender in a rather positive light and give some insight into what the Brazilian really brings to the table for the Gunners.
TIF Thoughts…
Lawrence isn’t really defending Luiz by what she says, but she’s only stating some facts that were true back in the summer of 2019.
Luiz had joined Arsenal for a fee of £8m and has previously won two Europa League titles, one Champions League title as well as the Premier League (via Transfermarkt), which backs up Lawrence’s point on the defender’s experience and haul of silverware.
However, Luiz has picked up an average WhoScored match rating of just 6.57/10 this season, which is only the 14th-best for the club in the current campaign. That’s a reflection of how he’s had a poor season and the Manchester City loss only mounted up those troubles. Therefore, the Arsenal fans may be hoping that the former Benfica man doesn’t stay at the Emirates for too long.