Rio Ferdinand has been left baffled by Gabriel Magalhaes after the Arsenal defender’s disappointing performance against Liverpool.
The Reds dominated at the Emirates Stadium, taking home a deserved three points thanks to two goals from Diogo Jota and Mohamed Salah ’s strike.
Gabriel was at fault for two of those goals, first making a mess of tackling Salah on the edge of the box to allow the Egyptian to go through on Bernd Leno and score.
Then for the third goal, he tried to float a pass out to Cedric Soares, but instead of finding the left-back, his loose ball was picked off by Trent Alexander-Arnold, with Jota then smashing in Salah’s cross.
It was the latest poor performance in what has been a mixed debut season for the Brazilian, who was signed from Lille ahead of this season for £27million.
He has failed to live up to that price tag though, struggling to put in consistently solid performances as Arsenal have struggled in the Premier League.
That inconsistency has now caused former Manchester United defender Ferdinand to reveal Gabriel’s performances have seen him change his mind on the 23-year-old, but not positively.
“I watched Gabriel on the first game of the season against Fulham and thought he looked alright,” Ferdinand said on the FIVE YouTube channel.
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“You can never judge a player on the one game, I know that – but as a one-off, he looked quite quick, aggressive and had a nice left foot.
“Then he just folds. It just doesn’t make sense, I can’t get my head around it. Is it the team, is there no protection? The defenders just look open and exposed and unable to deal with situations.
“I know he’s playing against Salah who is one of the best in the world right now but they don’t make it easy for themselves. They don’t make it pretty.”
Arsenal’s inability to sign solid defenders is one of the primary causes of their troubles this season and Ferdinand launched a scathing indictment of their recruitment.
“When is the last time Arsenal signed a centre-back they can rely on completely?” he said.
“It’s unbelievable, they’ve gone from having absolute rocks at the back and they can’t sign a good centre-half.
“I just don’t understand it. They’ve signed so many, they have the odd good game and you think you can see something there but then it just capitulates.”
