Charles Watts, the Arsenal correspondent for Goal, has been discussing the reported incident between Dani Ceballos and David Luiz during training last week on a recent YouTube video.
David Ornstein of The Athletic reported that the pair had been involved in an altercation that resulted in the Brazilian hitting Ceballos and allegedly drawing blood from his teammate – an incident which Arteta later played down in his most recent press conference, claiming these kinds of issues ‘happen a lot of times’.
The 24-year-old Spaniard re-joined Arsenal for another season-long loan after he spent the 2019/20 campaign at the Emirates Stadium (as per Transfermarkt), while this is not the first time he has been involved in a confrontation with one of his teammates. On the opening weekend of the season, Ceballos was involved in a spat with striker Eddie Nketiah prior to kick-off.
Shortly after the story broke, Ceballos took to social media to label it as ‘fake’ but Watts feels that was the wrong move from the midfielder. Here is what he had to say:
“Dani Ceballos came out immediately afterwards on social media and labelled the story as ‘fake’, but probably should have spoken with Mikel Arteta about what Arteta was going to say at the press conference before he’d done that, because Arteta’s made him a look a little bit silly now.
“From what we understand, the pair are now fine, it was just something that happens on the training ground – but I still think it was a little bit silly from Dani Ceballos to come out on Twitter yesterday and label it as ‘fake’, because there clearly was an incident and it looks a little bit stupid now, I have to say.”
Was Dani Ceballos wrong to react to the story on social media?
Yes
No
TIF Thoughts on Charles Watts’ comments regarding the incident between Dani Ceballos and David Luiz…
In our view, Ceballos probably should have thought twice prior to tweeting about the incident. Judging by what Watts and Arteta had to say, it appears the pair are fine and it’s very much water under the bridge – though it appears an altercation did indeed occur.
Based on the fact this is not the first incident of its kind to occur involving the former Real Betis man since he has been at the Emirates Stadium, you could argue this might be something of a concern for Mikel Arteta.
However, with Thomas Partey and Mohamed Elneny both ruled out for Sunday’s trip to Elland Road, where Arsenal will face Leeds United, the Real Madrid loanee could be handed an opportunity by his boss to make some positive headlines.